1437 Third Avenue (Le Trianon)

The tower rises 24 floors on a 77-by-102-foot lot on the Third Avenue blockfront, one lot north of the corner at East 81st Street. The front entrance provides direct access to Third Avenue through the plaza, per the offering plan; the building has no side-street address and no through-block frontage.

The reported 99,000 gross square feet spans 24 stories and 62 apartments as offered; those totals do not establish interior apartment sizes. The described inventory includes one- to three-bedroom homes, with duplexes in part of the stack and private terraces on upper units; confirm dimensions from individual plans. Balconies and bay windows appear on most lines. Under the offering plan, balconies and terraces are limited common elements irrevocably restricted to the units they serve, and every apartment is separately metered for electricity, which puts the electric bill on the owner rather than into common charges.

Combinations have reshaped the building meaningfully over four decades: the plan offered 62 units, the association's auditors counted 54 in occupancy at the end of 2019, and DOB filings on record show at least two significant combinations in the 2010s involving stacked apartments and new internal stairs. A buyer looking at an apartment here should not assume the floor plan matches the original Schedule A, and a buyer looking for a large apartment should understand that most of the large ones in this building were made rather than built.

Le Trianon is a full-service condominium with union-represented staff, an attended lobby, and an amenity program — fitness room, storage, playroom, bicycle room, roof deck, landscaped courtyard — that is generous for sixty apartments. Annual common charges ran a little over $1.1 million in the most recent audited year on file, with payroll and employee benefits accounting for well over half of operating expense. That ratio is the building in a sentence: this is a staffed building carried by a small ownership base.

The capital history on file runs through a single, coherent cycle. In December 2015 the board declared a $1.1 million special assessment, billed over twenty-four months from March 2016 through February 2018, to fund lobby and hallway air conditioning, hallway renovations, lobby renovations, an intercom upgrade, and boiler replacement. Owners could pay in a lump sum at a three percent discount, and ten chose to. A further $200,000 assessment was declared in 2018 for chimney and mechanical work. The associated spending — hallways, boiler, chimney, gym, elevator, scaffold, lobby lighting, vacuum and sump pumps — runs through the 2018 and 2019 statements, which is the pattern of a building doing its deferred maintenance all at once.

That cycle left the balance sheet thin. At year-end 2019, the most recent audited statement on file, cash stood under $60,000 against roughly $1.1 million of annual common charges, with reserve cash under $50,000, and members' equity in deficit. That statement shows no association debt, and as a condominium the building has no cooperative-style underlying mortgage, so the funding tools in use were common charges, assessments, and delay; association borrowing is possible only where the bylaws permit it. Its auditors note the absence of the required disclosure on future major repairs; no reserve study is in our file, so ask whether one has been commissioned.

Those statements are several years old and do not establish today’s reserves or funding policy. The 2016–2019 assessment history is relevant, but current audited statements and capital plans are needed to determine how later work has been or will be funded. Ask for the two most recent years of audited financials, the current reserve balance, the Local Law 11 façade cycle status — this is a balcony building of the right age for slab and railing work — and whether any assessment is declared or contemplated.

One further item worth knowing: the association has a real estate tax certiorari proceeding on file against the City, carried on the balance sheet as a payable. Certiorari work is normal and generally beneficial to owners.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval.

Reserve contribution on transfer: Five months of the then-current common charges, non-refundable, due on conveyance, per the audited financial statements on file. This is the building's transfer charge. Confirm the current common-charge figure and compute it before you sign.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules. Minimum lease terms and any sublet fee should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Pets, financing minimums, and house rules: Not documented in the plan or in public records. Confirm in writing.

Electricity: Separately metered per unit under the offering plan; the fitness facility and storage room are usable by unit owners without additional charge.

Recent sales

Recent closings 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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $1,275/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 1.5% 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 1-01527-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Budget the five-month reserve contribution. Ask for the complete conveyance-fee schedule, including the charge described as a reserve contribution. Compute it from the current common charges.

There is no abatement and there never was. Full taxes from the first closing in 1984. No abatement steps up later; taxes still move with assessments and rates.

Get the last two audited statements. The 2016–2019 statements report assessment-funded work and low year-end 2019 cash; they do not establish current reserve levels or the funding method for the next project. Ask what the reserve balance is today and what the Local Law 11 and balcony position is.

Assume the floor plan has changed. Combinations reduced the building from 62 apartments as offered to roughly 54 in occupancy. Verify what you are buying against the current certificate of occupancy and the board's alteration file, not against the original plan.

Search both addresses. 1437 Third Avenue and 1441 Third Avenue are the same tax lot; deeds and filings appear under both.

Do not confuse this with the other Third Avenue buildings. 1438 Third Avenue (Maison East) sits on block 1510 across the avenue and to the south; Étage (176 East 82nd Street) is also on block 1510 and is likewise addressed to Third Avenue; and The New Yorker (1474 Third Avenue) is on block 1512, was built in 1981 as a rental, and did not become a condominium until 2007. Three different blocks, three different histories, three different price bands. Confirm the block and lot before you comp.

If you're considering Le Trianon, also evaluate:

• 1438 Third Avenue (Maison East) — the closest physical neighbor and the most direct comp; different block, different economics
• The New Yorker (1474 Third Avenue) — Third Avenue tower of the same generation, converted from rental in 2007
• Étage (176 East 82nd Street) — condominium at East 82nd Street and Third Avenue
• 167 East 82nd Street (Merritt House) — mid-block condominium alternative on the same street
• 201 East 80th Street (The Richmond) — full-service Yorkville condominium of the same era, larger denominator
• Evans Tower (171 East 84th Street) — 1980s Third Avenue–corridor tower with a comparable service level
• 350 East 82nd Street (Wellington Tower) — tower on the same street farther east; compare dated prices, construction history and services
• The Gotham (1538 Third Avenue) — Third Avenue condominium to the north for buyers weighing newer construction
• 200 East 83rd Street — newer Yorkville condominium inventory; compare dated, adjusted sales