- Year built
- 1914
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 51
- Floors
- 12
- Landmark
- Designated
- Pets
- Permitted
- Flip tax
- 2.5 percent of sale price, buyer-paid
850 Park Avenue is one of the architecturally most consequential pre-1920 cooperatives on Park Avenue and among the very first Park Avenue buildings to convert to cooperative ownership — the 1920 conversion predates the broader pre-war Park Avenue cooperative conversion wave by years. The 1914 Rouse & Goldstone design predates J.E.R. Carpenter's mature Park Avenue work and predates the Candela era by more than a decade, making 850 Park one of the earliest purpose-built luxury apartment houses on the avenue.
The architectural register is structurally distinctive within the Park Avenue tradition. The brick is unusual: the firm specified a mottled, roughened surface with a deliberately handmade quality — a tactile finish that softens the building's mass against the sleeker limestone-based neighbors built a decade later. Christopher Gray of The New York Times praised the design as "an educated design" with a subtlety reflecting a craft tradition. Arched windows on the second floor, decorative garlands, and a canopied entrance with herringbone sidewalk landscaping define the base; the original cornice has been removed.
The building's most architecturally distinguished interior feature is the Wedgwood-style lobby — a pale-blue ground with white classical relief that is among the most photographed pre-war lobbies on Park Avenue and a structural identity feature unmatched by peer cooperatives on the corridor.
Rouse & Goldstone's broader Park Avenue body of work — 755 Park (1914), 760 Park (1924), 815 Park (1916–17), and 850 Park (1914) — places the firm among the most prolific pre-1920 Park Avenue apartment-house architects. 850 Park represents the firm's earlier Italianate vocabulary; the firm's later Park Avenue work would extend through the 1920s into neo-Georgian and other classical-revival registers.
Architecture and unit composition
The 51 cooperative apartments distribute across the building's 12 stories. Apartment-level features documented across the building's inventory include high ceilings, wood-burning fireplaces, herringbone oak floors, formal living and dining rooms, butler's pantries, staff quarters, and semi-private elevator landings. Corner units carry multi-exposure light conditions.
The Wedgwood-style lobby is the building's principal interior architectural feature and a structural identity asset.
Building operations
850 Park operates as a full-service cooperative with 24-hour doorman, fitness center, basketball court, bike storage, and children's play area with courtyard — an unusually developed amenity inventory for the pre-1920 Park Avenue cooperative tier. The cooperative policy framework is structurally notable: 30 percent maximum financing, 2.5 percent buyer-paid flip tax, pet-friendly, and pied-à-terre permitted (rare on this stretch of Park Avenue).
CityRealty assigns the building a rating of 73.
What to know if you’re buying
The 1920 cooperative conversion is structurally distinguishing. Among the very earliest Park Avenue cooperative conversions; the deep institutional cooperative history has produced a building culture continuously refined for more than a century.
The Rouse & Goldstone architectural pedigree is real. The firm's earlier Italianate vocabulary; among the four documented Rouse & Goldstone Park Avenue commissions.
The Wedgwood-style lobby is structural. A real architectural-history interior asset uncommon among peer Park Avenue cooperatives.
The mottled-and-roughened brick is a structural architectural feature. Christopher Gray's Times coverage documents the deliberately handmade quality of the brick specification.
The cooperative policy framework is structurally permissive. 30 percent maximum financing is restrictive; the 2.5 percent buyer-paid flip tax is meaningful at closing; the pied-à-terre allowance is rare on this stretch of Park Avenue.
The amenity inventory is unusually developed. Fitness center, basketball court, bike storage, and children's play area with courtyard are uncommon among pre-1920 Park Avenue cooperatives.
Verify operational specifics during due diligence. Specific board approval framework, sublet duration limits, current capital project pipeline, and the LL11 façade cycle on the 1914 vintage should be reviewed.
Closing timelines are cooperative-standard. Plan for 6–10 weeks from contract through board approval to closing.
What to know if you’re selling
Marketing should emphasize the Rouse & Goldstone architectural credential, the 1920 cooperative-conversion vintage, and the Wedgwood-style lobby. All are structural identity features.
The pied-à-terre allowance is a real buyer-pool-expansion feature. Marketing should reach buyers planning pied-à-terre use.
Pricing should reference recent comparable closings. Recent CityRealty-documented closings have spanned the mid-single digits for two-bedroom configurations through the mid-teens for larger combinations.
Closing timelines are cooperative-standard.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 850 Park Avenue, also evaluate:
- 755 Park Avenue — Rouse & Goldstone 1914; same-firm same-vintage Park Avenue peer
- 815 Park Avenue — Rouse & Goldstone 1916–17; same-firm Park Avenue peer
- 760 Park Avenue — Rouse & Goldstone 1924; same-firm Park Avenue peer
- 875 Park Avenue — Sylvan Bien; nearby Park Avenue peer (already on the existing 186-slug list)
- 888 Park Avenue — Schwartz & Gross 1925–26; nearby Park Avenue peer
The Roebling Team at 850 Park
The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in Central Park West, the Upper East Side, and the broader Park-facing Manhattan market. We publish this building profile because Park Avenue Lenox Hill buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — architectural attribution, board context, and pricing at the apartment level.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at 850 Park, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.