The Orwell House (257 Central Park West)
257 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
Upper West Side
BBL 1011990036 · BIN 1031371
- Year built
- 1906
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 69
- Floors
- 12
- Landmark
- No
- Flip tax
- 2 percent of gross sale price, payable by the seller, per management-sourced records — verify at offer stage
- Financing
- Up to 75% financeable (25% minimum down).
- Subletting
- Permitted with Board approval.
- Pied-à-terre
- Permitted.
- Pets
- Permitted, subject to Board approval.
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2026). Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 3BR median
- $2.8M
- Recent range
- $400K – $9.1M
- Listing discount
- 3.1%
- Recorded transfers
- 96
The Orwell House has one of the most unusual ownership histories on Central Park West. Completed in 1906 as the Central Park View, a luxury apartment house, it was reconfigured beginning in 1918 into the Hotel Peter Stuyvesant, a residential hotel that operated for six decades. In 1978 the hotel was converted to a residential cooperative under its present name, and it has run as a co-op ever since.
That sequence — apartment house, then residential hotel, then cooperative — is rare on the avenue. Most Central Park West pre-war buildings were either purpose-built as apartments and converted to co-ops in waves from the late 1950s onward, or stayed rentals. The intermediate hotel phase left specific legacies here: unit footprints smaller than typical pre-war Manhattan apartments, a distinctive lobby and common-area proportion, and a service posture with echoes of the hotel era.
The building is also, by the standards of its cohort, unusually open. Management-sourced records document cats and dogs permitted, pied-à-terre purchase permitted, and financing to 75 percent — a combination that meaningfully widens the qualifying buyer pool relative to the more restrictive trophy Central Park West inventory, where financing caps of 50 to 70 percent and primary-residence requirements are the norm. Buyers structuring around debt, a second home, or a pet should treat that policy stack as a real structural feature of the building and confirm each term in writing.
The amenity that residents talk about is the rooftop deck — furnished, and open across Central Park, the Onassis Reservoir and the skyline beyond. It is a genuine daily-use amenity rather than a nominal one, and it is supported by a fitness center, central laundry, bike room, package room and private storage, with 24-hour doormen, a full-time concierge and a live-in superintendent running the building.
At twelve stories the building sits below the Art Deco twin-tower silhouettes to the north and south and above the smaller pre-war inventory of the same vintage — a mid-scale presence on a blockfront defined by extremes.
Architecture and unit composition
The Beaux-Arts composition in red brick over a limestone base was characteristic of the era's upper-middle tier of residential design, and the building reads as a coherent single mass on the park blockfront rather than as a tower.
The 69 apartments reflect the hotel-residential heritage. Footprints are generally smaller than in contemporaneous purpose-built Central Park West apartment houses, and the building does not carry the large family-apartment configurations found at its larger neighbors. Most residences are studios and one- and two-bedroom layouts, with combinations across lines producing the larger inventory — combinations run across several lines and are the building's upper tier.
Pre-war signatures are present but modest: ceilings typically in the nine-to-eleven-foot range, period detail in varying states of preservation, hardwood floors. Line-to-line variation is substantial, which is characteristic of a 1906 floor plate reworked for hotel use and reworked again at conversion. Diligence here should be line-specific rather than building-general.
Park-facing apartments occupy the eastern flank with direct Central Park exposure; corner residences with combined park and West 86th Street exposure are the building's best-lit inventory. View permanence on the park side is effectively absolute, and West 86th Street is a stable residential block.
Building operations
The Orwell House runs a full-service pre-war cooperative operation: 24-hour doormen, full-time concierge, live-in superintendent, elevator service, fitness center, central laundry, bike room, package room, private storage and the furnished roof deck.
The building participates in the NYC Cooperative & Condominium Property Tax Abatement for qualifying primary-residence shareholders, which materially affects the monthly carrying number for owner-occupants and does not travel to investor or pied-à-terre ownership. Underwrite the two cases separately.
Several building-level items are not published and should be confirmed against the by-laws, the proprietary lease and the current house rules during diligence: the working-capital contribution mechanics at transfer, the move-in and move-out fee schedule, the alteration-agreement scope and approval framework, and the board application and interview timeline. Buyers should also ask for the current reserve position and the building's Local Law 11 façade cycle status on a 1906 structure.
Policy framework
- Pets: Permitted — cats and dogs.
- Pied-à-terre: Documented as permitted in management-sourced records; described as case-by-case in others. Get the current answer from the managing agent in writing before offering — this is the one term in the stack where the record genuinely disagrees with itself.
- Financing: Up to 75 percent of purchase price per management-sourced records. Unusually flexible for the Central Park West pre-war cohort.
- Subletting: Permitted with board approval; job-relocation sublets specifically documented. Confirm term limits and any sublet fee.
- Flip tax: 2 percent of gross sale price, payable by the seller, per management-sourced records.
- Working capital, move fees, alteration agreement, board timeline: Not documented in the records available to us. Confirm with the managing agent.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- Per unit / month range
- —
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 filing classified the facade as SWARMP — Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program: the engineer identified conditions requiring monitoring or repair before the next inspection cycle. The scope, timeline, and how the building funds the work are building-specific — we review the filings and board materials for you.
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.
Management & transfer contacts
- Flip tax
- 2% of gross sales price (seller)
- Sublet policy
- Only if shareholder temporarily transferred out of Manhattan for job
- Pied-à-terre
- Allowed
- Notable fees
- Move-in/out $300 each; deposits $500 each; max financing 75%
Inside The Orwell House. The building name and the street address are the same property; there is one building on the lot
Recent sales
The Orwell House transacts at a steady cadence for a building of its size — turnover is active relative to the broader Central Park West pre-war cooperative cohort, with closings across the full stack from studios through four-bedroom combinations in a typical year. That depth is itself a feature: unlike the trophy buildings on the avenue, where a single line may not trade for a decade, this building generally produces same-building comparables.
Three patterns are worth understanding before pricing. First, the studio and one-bedroom inventory is the most actively traded and the cleanest internal comparable set, particularly the H line. Second, the combination premium is real — apartments combined across lines trade at the top of their configuration tier and have no clean in-building analogue below them. Third, wider discounts to asking price at this building have generally tracked apartment-level condition, exposure and line variation rather than any building-level pricing pressure; a well-prepared, correctly priced apartment here has historically cleared close to ask.
Pricing per room sits below the larger-format Central Park West pre-war landmarks, which is a function of the smaller unit format and the somewhat lower ceilings rather than of building quality. Market statements are indexed to the last complete year. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2, 2026 | 9A | 3 BR · 2.5 BA | $5,100,000 | -21.5% | |
| Feb 11, 2026 | 7F | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,900 sf | $2,840,000 | $1,495/sf | -1.9% |
| Jan 16, 2025 | 9D | 3 BR · 2 BA | $2,200,000 | +0.0% | |
| Aug 15, 2024 | 11AB | 4 BR · 3 BA | $9,100,000 | -17.3% | |
| Mar 14, 2024 | 10C | 2 BR · 2 BA | $2,325,000 | -3.1% | |
| Dec 22, 2022 | 3F | 4 BR · 3 BA | $1,750,000 | -5.4% | |
| Oct 25, 2022 | 10F | 3 BR · 3 BA | $2,900,000 | -3.3% | |
| Sep 12, 2022 | 12E | 2 BR · 2 BA | $1,700,000 | +3.0% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,385/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 3.6% 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 1-01199-0036) 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
The policy stack is the reason many buyers end up here. Financing to 75 percent, pets, and a documented pied-à-terre allowance are all unusual on this avenue. Confirm each one in writing — they are the building's principal structural advantage and they are worth verifying rather than assuming.
Smaller-format units are the building's signature. The hotel heritage produced studios and one- and two-bedrooms rather than pre-war family apartments. For a buyer who wants Central Park West architecture and a park block without a full pre-war floor plate, that is the trade.
Line variation is substantial. A 1906 plan reworked twice does not produce uniform apartments. Diligence the specific line, not the building.
The roof deck is a real amenity. Furnished, open over the park and the Reservoir, and used. It is a legitimate part of the value here.
Run the abatement two ways. Primary-residence owners qualify; investors and pied-à-terre owners do not, and the monthly difference is meaningful.
Historic-district status constrains exterior work. Interior renovation is feasible within the alteration agreement; the envelope carries a Landmarks dimension.
What to know if you’re selling
The buyer pool is broader than at the trophy buildings. First-time Central Park West buyers, single owners, couples and pied-à-terre seekers all shop here, precisely because of the policy stack and the unit format. Market to all four.
Lead with the policies and the roof. They differentiate this building from every restrictive alternative on the avenue, and they are the two things buyers cannot find elsewhere on the blockfront at this scale.
Price the line, not the building. With 69 apartments across a wide configuration range, building averages mislead. Same-line comparables exist here more often than at peer buildings — use them.
Mansion-tax exposure depends on scale. Smaller configurations generally fall below the threshold; combinations do not. Model it before setting the ask.
Closing timelines are cooperative-standard. Four to eight weeks from contract to closing, plus the board package and interview.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering The Orwell House, also evaluate:
- The Alden (225 CPW) — pre-war apartment-hotel converted to a cooperative; the closest peer on heritage
- The Bolivar (230 CPW) — neo-Georgian pre-war cooperative a few blocks south; similar scale
- The Beresford (211 CPW) — Emery Roth's three-tower landmark; the trophy step-up
- The San Remo (145–146 CPW) — Roth twin-tower landmark; the trophy comparison
- The Eldorado (300 CPW) — Art Deco twin-tower landmark to the north
- 241 Central Park West — Schwartz & Gross 1931; the rental alternative on the blockfront, for context rather than purchase
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.
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.
Considering a move at The Orwell House. The building name and the street address are the same property; there is one building on the lot?
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 Orwell House. The building name and the street address are the same property; there is one building on the lot 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.