1437 Third Avenue (Le Trianon)
1437 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10028
Yorkville, Upper East Side
BBL 1015277501 · BIN 1048582
- Year built
- 1985
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 62
- Floors
- 24
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,034
- Listing discount
- 1.5%
- Recorded sales
- 66
- On record
- 2003–2026
Third Avenue above 79th Street is a corridor of 1970s and 1980s towers, and most of them are indistinguishable from one another: white brick or beige brick, flush to the lot line, a canopy and a door. Le Trianon is the one on this stretch that spent money on the ground. The building is set back behind a landscaped plaza, the entrance sits under a large marquee carried on concrete supports with a sculpted first-floor treatment behind it, and the lobby is entered one step down through revolving doors. That is a small amount of architecture, but on Third Avenue it is a differentiator, and forty years on it is still the reason the building photographs better than its neighbors.
The façade follows the same logic. Warm light-orange brick rather than the period's default white, balconies with red-brick returns rather than raw concrete, bay windows breaking the plane, and an angled roofline that gives the tower a silhouette from the south. Liebman Liebman Associates, the architects named in the offering plan, were working in the same 1980s Manhattan apartment-house market as the larger production firms, and this is a building that reads as having been designed rather than extruded.
The second thing that distinguishes Le Trianon is scale in the other direction: 24 stories but only about 62 apartments as offered, on a lot of 7,676 square feet. That is roughly two and a half to three apartments per floor. The building is a thin tower, not a slab, which means most apartments have more than one exposure, corner units are common rather than exceptional, and elevator traffic is light. It also means the denominator for fixed costs is small — a 60-unit building carrying doormen, a concierge desk, a fitness room, a playroom, a roof deck and a landscaped courtyard is spreading a full-service payroll across very few apartments. Common charges here should be evaluated against the operating budget, not against the amenity list.
The third thing is entirely a matter of documents, and it is the most useful fact on this page. Le Trianon has no flip tax. What it has instead is a reserve contribution, payable on every conveyance, equal to five months of the then-current common charges. It is disclosed in the association's audited financial statements, it is non-refundable, and it is missed constantly, because a buyer who asks "is there a flip tax?" gets a truthful "no" and then finds the charge on the closing statement. Ask about the reserve contribution by name.
Architecture and unit composition
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.
With about 99,000 gross square feet across 24 stories and 62 apartments as offered, the plate is small and the apartments are correspondingly generous relative to the unit count — one- to three-bedroom homes, with duplexes in part of the stack and private terraces on upper units. 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.
Building operations
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. There is no underlying mortgage — this is a condominium, not a cooperative, and the association carries no debt — so the funding tools available are common charges, assessments, and delay. The association has never commissioned a reserve study, and its auditors note the absence of the required disclosure on future major repairs.
Those statements are now several years old, and the building will have re-accumulated reserves since. The point is not the 2019 number; the point is that this association funds capital work by assessment rather than by reserve accumulation, and a buyer should expect that pattern to continue. 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.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval, which produces the faster and more predictable closing timeline that draws buyers to this corridor in the first place.
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: All available under the standard condominium framework. 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.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $5,280/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $7
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Le Trianon competes in the deepest and most liquid condominium market on the Upper East Side: the Third Avenue and Second Avenue tower corridor between the 70s and the 90s, where a buyer has dozens of full-service 1970s-to-1990s options within a ten-minute walk. Differentiation in that market comes from four things, and this building has three of them.
Exposure and light are the first, and a thin 24-story tower with two or three apartments to a floor delivers them better than the slabs do — corner apartments and multiple exposures are the norm here, not the exception. Outdoor space is the second: balconies on most lines and terraces on some upper units, in a corridor where private outdoor space is scarce. Architecture is the third; the plaza setback, the marquee and the brick are a genuine and visible upgrade on the block.
The fourth factor cuts the other way. A sixty-unit building running a full staff and a full amenity list has a high fixed cost per apartment, and common charges here should be examined against the budget rather than against a rule of thumb. Combined with the five-month reserve contribution on transfer and no tax abatement of any kind, the true carrying and transaction cost of ownership at Le Trianon is higher than the sticker suggests. That is not a reason to avoid the building; it is a reason to model it properly, because the offsetting facts — no scheduled tax step-up ever, no underlying mortgage, and a large block of deferred maintenance already paid for — are genuinely favorable.
For sellers, the strongest arguments are the completed 2016–2019 capital program, the absence of any abatement burn-off waiting to surprise a buyer, and the light, air and outdoor space that the thin floor plate delivers.
Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2, 2026 | PHB | 3 BR · 3.5 BA · 2,950 sf | $3,050,000 | $1,034/sf | +2.0% |
| Jul 29, 2024 | 6C | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,287 sf | $1,500,000 | $1,166/sf | -3.2% |
| Nov 20, 2023 | 15A | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,582 sf | $1,669,500 | $1,055/sf | -4.6% |
| Sep 15, 2023 | 9B | 1 BR · 1.5 BA · 897 sf | $1,300,500 | $1,450/sf | +13.2% |
| Mar 7, 2023 | 22A | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,515 sf | $1,900,000 | $1,254/sf | -11.6% |
| Aug 9, 2022 | 12BC | 3 BR · 3 BA · 1,905 sf | $3,100,000 | $1,627/sf | +3.5% |
| Dec 2, 2021 | 14B | 659 sf | $659,000 | $1,000/sf | off-mkt |
| Mar 31, 2021 | 21A | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,515 sf | $1,750,000 | $1,155/sf | -20.3% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,034/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 1.5% 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 1-01527-7501) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Budget the five-month reserve contribution. It is not a flip tax and it will not show up if you only ask about flip taxes. Compute it from the current common charges.
There is no abatement and there never was. Full taxes from the first closing in 1984. Nothing steps up later.
Get the last two audited statements. This association funds capital work by assessment, and the last documented cycle drew reserves down hard. 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.
Comparable buildings
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) — Third Avenue–addressed condominium one block south
- 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) — 1980s tower comp on the same street, further east and cheaper per foot
- The Gotham (1538 Third Avenue) — Third Avenue condominium to the north for buyers weighing newer construction
- 200 East 83rd Street — newer Yorkville condominium inventory; the price-per-foot ceiling in the immediate area
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
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.
Considering a move at Le Trianon?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Le Trianon 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.