Bear House
114 West 81st Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues · Upper West Side
BBL 1012110040 · BIN 1031983
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark status
- Not an individual landmark; in the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission records, updated February 2026
- Washer/dryer
- Permitted with conditions
- Doorman
- No doorman
Every recorded sale at this building, 2007–2025
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 1BR median, 2024–2025
- $778K
- 2 qualifying sales
- Recent range
- $778K – $778K
- Listing discount
- 1.2%
- Recorded transfers
- 11
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Bear House would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.
Bear House occupies a brownstone rowhouse designed by Neville & Bagge for Giblin & Taylor in 1892–93. The house was part of a three-house commission, using Renaissance and Romanesque Revival ornament on a masonry structure with a raised basement. Its conversion into apartments retained the narrow house form and produced a wide range of interior sizes.
The cooperative dates to 1985. Its West 81st Street entrance stands on the Columbus-to-Amsterdam Avenue block, with the American Museum of Natural History grounds east across Columbus Avenue. The property falls within the historic district designated in 1990.
Architecture and unit composition
The original design uses a brownstone façade and a stoop leading above the raised basement. Window openings and the vertical arrangement of the façade express the house's four main floors. LPC identifies masonry bearing-wall construction, a characteristic that matters when evaluating substantial changes to internal openings.
The apartment inventory includes studios, one-bedroom homes and larger configurations extending to approximately 1,500 square feet. Some lower homes incorporate outdoor space. Upper apartments retain features such as high ceilings, tall windows, original doors and decorative fireplaces, with the extent of surviving woodwork varying after successive renovations.
Smaller layouts include homes around 550 to 600 square feet. Open kitchens and loft storage make use of the interior height in some apartments, while larger combined plans occupy more of the original house. Laundry equipment has been installed in selected homes.
Building operations
This is a walk-up cooperative. Upper-floor access is by the common stair, while the raised entrance and basement arrangement create different routes into the lower homes. The building's scale supports a small shareholder association maintaining one historic façade, roof and stair system.
Exterior alterations are subject to LPC review. Work involving the brownstone, front windows and stoop has to respect the property's historic-district status. Inside, the bearing-wall structure makes the location of a proposed opening more significant than the apparent amount of floor area available for a renovation.
Application and transaction fees
Fees below are from building management's published schedule, as of August 2026. They are shown as published, item by item; no total is added because the total depends on the transaction. Deposits are listed apart from nonrefundable charges.
Purchase
1 item
Fees and charges
| Item | Paid by | When | Amount | Refundable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application Fee | Paid by Buyer | When With the application | Amount $450 | Refundable Non-refundable |
Sublet
1 item
Fees and charges
| Item | Paid by | When | Amount | Refundable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application Fee | Paid by Subtenant | When With the application | Amount $450 | Refundable Non-refundable |
Management updates its schedule without a public filing. The date is when management last updated the page, not when a rule changed. Confirm the current schedule with management before you apply.
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Pets and in-unit washer/dryer
- Pets
- Not verified
- In-unit washer/dryer
- Permitted with conditionsSome apartmentsSource: The Roebling Team's building profile
Considering an apartment here? Send Corey the listing to confirm the pet and washer/dryer rules for that apartment.
Monthly carrying charges in recent sales
- Maintenance, per room
- $392 per room a monthMedian of 3 recorded sales since October 2023Source: recorded sales, refreshed October 2026
Maintenance as recorded with each sale. A co-op's maintenance already covers the building's real estate taxes and the building's own mortgage, if it has one; add your own loan payment for the monthly outlay. A summary of recorded sales, not a current bill; charges change.
Building staffing and amenities
- Doorman
- No doormanSource: The Roebling Team's building profile
- Elevator
- NoSource: NYC Department of City Planning records (PLUTO)
Staffing and amenities as our building profile and recent listing records describe them. A feature not listed is not confirmed absent. Outdoor space, parking and some facilities can belong to particular apartments or to a separate owner; confirm access for the specific apartment.
Local Law 97
This building is below the 25,000 sq ft threshold at which LL97 limits apply to a building on its own. It is still covered if it shares a tax lot or condominium board with buildings totaling over 50,000 sq ft; confirm on DOB’s covered-buildings list.
See full Local Law 97 analysis →Recent sales
Recent transfers at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 7, 2025 | 2F | 1 BR · 1 BA | $778,000 | +0.0% | |
| May 7, 2024 | GF | 1.5 BA · 550 sf | $535,000 | $973/sf | -2.7% |
| Feb 7, 2024 | 2F | 1 BR · 1 BA | $778,000 | +0.0% | |
| Jan 31, 2023 | GR | 1 BR · 1 BA | $1,150,000 | -4.2% | |
| Jan 21, 2020 | 1R | 3 BR · 1.5 BA | $1,750,000 | +0.0% | |
| May 7, 2015 | 3F | 1 BR · 600 sf | $585,000 | $975/sf | -2.3% |
| Oct 11, 2013 | 2R | 2 BR | $1,035,000 | +5.1% | |
| Aug 30, 2012 | 1 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,500 sf | $1,750,000 | $1,167/sf | -9.1% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2024): a median $973/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 2.5% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01211-0040). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
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Buying here? Co-op closing costs typically run 2 to 3% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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Comparable buildings
- 153 West 80th Street — Another Neville & Bagge design, built as a larger Renaissance Revival flats building.
- 134 West 82nd Street — A small prewar cooperative with an elevator and part-time superintendent.
- 71 West 83rd Street — Dundonald Flats, a nineteenth-century apartment house offering a purpose-built flats comparison.
- 35 West 82nd Street — A nine-story Schwartz & Gross cooperative, with a larger operating scale and elevator access.
- 107 West 82nd Street — Three historic houses combined in a condop structure with separately owned professional space.
More Upper West Side buildings
- 112 West 79th Street — 1925 co-op
- 114 Morningside Drive — 1910 co-op
- 114 West 70th Street — 1922 co-op
- 119 West 71st Street — 1912 co-op
- 119 West 82nd Street — co-op
- 121 West 72nd Street — 1926 co-op by H.I. Feldman
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Upper West Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper West Side.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com