117 East 72nd Street

The building is a restrained pre-war masonry house, designed to sit comfortably within the protected, low-rise streetscape of the Upper East Side Historic District. Its understatement is deliberate — this is a building that announces itself through service and proportion rather than ornament.

Inside, the appeal is space. With only twenty apartments over fifteen floors, the homes run large: full-floor and half-floor layouts with the entry galleries, separated entertaining and bedroom wings, high ceilings, and hardwood floors that define the era at its best. Light improves with height, and the full-floor lines enjoy multiple exposures and the privacy of a private landing. The result is a building of genuinely grand apartments at a deliberately small scale.

117 East 72nd Street is a full-service, white-glove cooperative. A 24-hour doorman, a live-in resident manager, and a full professional staff run the building, with dedicated security coverage and private storage among the practical amenities. The cooperative is pet-friendly. Its financial posture is conservative and traditional: the building does not permit financing — purchases close all-cash — and subletting is not allowed. A 2% flip tax is paid by the purchaser at closing. Purchases are reviewed by a board, and the building is run firmly for owner-occupancy.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Apartment-level facts are independently verified before publishing; sale prices reflect the recorded transfer amount at the NYC Department of Finance.

Market read. Most recent trades (2015) cleared a median $714/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 10.1% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01407-0008) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.

Plan around two realities. First, this is an all-cash building — financing is not permitted — so buyers must be prepared to close without a mortgage and to demonstrate the liquidity and post-closing reserves a conservative board expects. Second, subletting is not allowed, so the apartment must serve as a residence, not an income property. A 2% flip tax is due from the buyer at closing.

What you get in return is scarcity and quality: a full-floor pre-war on a Park-block corner of Lenox Hill, in a discreet, deeply staffed building. Inventory is minimal, so when a home surfaces it warrants a prepared, well-documented offer. We help buyers assemble a board package that meets the building's exacting standard, evaluate the specific floor and exposure, and benchmark the ask against the limited comparable Lenox Hill set.

The marketing core is exclusivity: a twenty-unit white-glove co-op, full-floor living, all-cash, on one of the best blocks in Lenox Hill. That profile speaks directly to a specific, well-capitalized buyer who values privacy and proportion over amenity density, and it differentiates the apartment sharply from the larger, more transactional co-ops nearby.

The all-cash requirement narrows the buyer pool, which makes targeted positioning and patient pricing essential — the right buyer pays a premium for exactly this combination, but reaching them takes a focused effort rather than broad exposure. We market to that pool directly, present the board's standards and the all-cash, no-sublet posture up front to keep deals intact, and manage the cooperative's review toward a clean closing.

If you're considering 117 East 72nd Street, also evaluate nearby Lenox Hill and East 72nd Street pre-war cooperatives:

• 19 East 72nd Street — Rosario Candela pre-war co-op near Fifth Avenue
• 4 East 72nd Street — pre-war cooperative off Fifth Avenue
• 45 East 72nd Street — full-service East 72nd Street co-op
• 50 East 72nd Street — pre-war cooperative near Park Avenue
• 114 East 72nd Street — pre-war co-op directly across the street

The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in the Upper East Side, Lenox Hill, Park Avenue, and the white-glove pre-war co-op market — including the all-cash, full-floor buildings that anchor the East 70s. We publish this profile because buyers and sellers evaluating an intimate, conservatively run cooperative deserve building-specific intelligence: the architecture, the board's standards, the financing and sublet posture, and where pricing sits in a thin-turnover market.

If you're considering a purchase or sale at 117 East 72nd Street, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.