227 Central Park West
227 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
Upper West Side
BBL 1011960035 · BIN 1031182
- Year built
- 1889
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark
- Designated
Every recorded sale at this building, 2004–2024
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- Recent range
- $2.1M – $4.3M
- Listing discount
- 3.2%
- Recorded transfers
- 28
227 Central Park West is one of the oldest residential buildings still standing on the avenue — a six-story Queen Anne apartment house that has held the southwest corner of West 83rd Street since the late 1880s, predating the great pre-war Central Park West towers by a full generation. Designed by Thom & Wilson and known as The Lolita, it belongs to the first wave of Manhattan's "French flats," when the apartment building was still a novel and slightly suspect idea among the city's wealthy, and architects dressed these early elevator buildings in the picturesque Queen Anne vocabulary then in fashion.
What sets the building apart is its scale and its survival. Where most of Central Park West was rebuilt in the 1920s and '30s into the limestone-and-brick towers that define the skyline today, 227 was never demolished — it remains a genuinely Victorian-era building on a park block, with a projecting rounded corner, floral terra-cotta ornament clustered around the windows, and three decorative band courses banding the facade. At 22 residences across six floors, it is a true boutique cooperative: small, quiet, and architecturally distinct in a way newer buildings cannot replicate.
For buyers, the appeal is a direct park-block address on Central Park West at a human scale — a self-managed, intimate co-op where ownership means a real share of a small and historically significant building, rather than an anonymous unit in a 200-apartment tower.
Architecture and unit composition
The Lolita is a study in late-nineteenth-century apartment design. The Queen Anne style favored asymmetry, texture, and incident over the disciplined classicism that would later dominate the avenue, and the building shows it: a brick and brownstone body enlivened with Renaissance Revival terra cotta, a turreted rounded corner that reads as the building's signature gesture, and ornamental band courses that break the facade into horizontal registers. It is one of the few buildings on the park that still announces its 1880s origins so clearly.
Inside, the 22 residences reflect the generous proportions of early luxury flats — high ceilings, deep layouts, and the through-floor light that a corner park building enjoys. With roughly 1,280 square feet per unit on a building-wide average, homes here run from gracious one- and two-bedrooms to larger combined layouts, several of them facing east toward Central Park. Period detail — moldings, hardwood floors, and the room counts typical of nineteenth-century construction — survives in many apartments, while others have been modernized behind their historic walls.
Building operations
227 Central Park West is run as a boutique cooperative with a live-in resident manager — the on-site staffing model that small park-block buildings rely on in place of a full doorman roster. The building maintains a central laundry room and private storage, and it is pet-friendly, with both dogs and cats welcome. Its position within the Central Park West Historic District means that exterior alterations are reviewed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which protects the terra-cotta facade and the building's distinctive corner — a meaningful safeguard for the architecture that gives the building its value.
As a small co-op, governance is close and hands-on; the board oversees admissions, financing, and house rules directly. Prospective purchasers should expect a traditional co-op application and board interview, with the financing and residency policies typical of an established Central Park West cooperative.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- Per unit / month range
- —
Management & transfer contacts
- Sublet policy
- Subtenant application processing fee $600
- Notable fees
- Buyer application processing $600; credit report $100/applicant
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 18, 2024 | 6B | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,330 sf | $2,075,000 | $1,560/sf | -7.8% |
| Jul 25, 2023 | 5AD | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,100 sf | $4,300,000 | $2,048/sf | -6.4% |
| Jun 4, 2021 | 4A | 4 BR · 3 BA | $4,998,000 | -13.8% | |
| May 19, 2021 | 4AD | 4 BR | $4,998,000 | +0.0% | |
| May 18, 2021 | 6A | 3 BR · 2 BA | $2,800,000 | -9.7% | |
| Apr 16, 2019 | 2C | 1 BR · 1 BA | $687,500 | -1.1% | |
| Jan 8, 2019 | 5C | 1 BR · 1 BA | $753,500 | -5.2% | |
| Jun 12, 2018 | 1D | 1 BR | $895,000 | off-mkt |
Market read. Most recent trades (2024) cleared a median $1,560/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 1.9% 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 1-01196-0035) 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
What to know if you’re buying
Buying here means buying into a small, historically significant cooperative — a different proposition from a large pre-war tower. The building is pet-friendly, and the live-in resident manager handles day-to-day operations, but with 22 units the shared overhead is spread across few households, so maintenance, capital assessments, and reserve health deserve close reading. Expect a conventional co-op admissions process: a full board package, financials, and an interview. As an established Upper West Side co-op, the building applies financing limits and residency expectations typical of the corridor — purchasers should plan for a substantial down payment and primary-residence use rather than investor or pure pied-à-terre ownership.
The trade-off is a rare address: a direct Central Park West park block, a designated-district facade that cannot be altered out from under you, and the architectural character of one of the avenue's oldest survivors. For a buyer who wants the park and the avenue without the anonymity of a tower, that is the case.
What to know if you’re selling
The Lolita sells on scarcity and character. There are very few Victorian-era buildings left on Central Park West, and none can be reproduced — the Queen Anne facade, the corner turret, and the terra-cotta detail are genuine differentiators that distinguish a sale here from the uniform pre-war stock up and down the avenue. Park exposure is the other lever: east-facing apartments carry the building's strongest pricing, and condition and room count do the rest.
Because the building trades so rarely, a well-prepared listing benefits from the absence of competing inventory inside the same address. Benchmark a sale against the boutique and mid-size co-ops on the park blocks rather than against the large towers, lead with the architecture and the direct Central Park West location, and present a clean board package — the buyer pool for a small, traditional co-op rewards a transaction that is ready to clear the board.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 227 Central Park West, also evaluate these nearby Central Park West cooperatives:
- 239 Central Park West — park-block co-op just to the north
- 241 Central Park West — Central Park West cooperative peer
- 262 Central Park West — pre-war park-facing co-op
- 271 Central Park West — Schwartz & Gross's 1913 Central Park West cooperative
- 275 Central Park West — park-block co-op nearby
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Central Park West — read The Roebling Team Guide to Central Park West.
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.
Considering a move at The Lolita?
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 The Lolita 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.