891 Park Avenue

Hess designed 891 Park in the elegant, vertically-minded Art Deco that defined the best Park Avenue apartment houses of the early 1930s. The three-story limestone base grounds the brick shaft; the fourth-floor balcony and the upper-floor terra-cotta detailing give the elevation rhythm; and the geometric ornament across the top three floors, met by an ironwork parapet, provides a crisp, period-correct crown. The result is a building that holds its own on Park Avenue without imitating its pre-war Renaissance-revival neighbors.

Inside, the residences are full-floor homes of roughly 1,725 square feet, typically two bedrooms (several configurable to three), each with en-suite baths, opening from a private elevator landing. The pre-war fabric is intact and exceptional: high beamed ceilings around 9 feet 3 inches, wood-burning fireplaces, oak herringbone floors, and the salvaged Plaza Hotel mantels that lend individual apartments a genuine provenance. Many homes have been comprehensively renovated while preserving the original detail, combining Deco character with contemporary systems and kitchens.

891 Park is a full-service cooperative: a full-time doorman attends the entrance, with a resident superintendent on premises, and each apartment has its own storage. The private elevator landing for every residence means no shared corridors — a level of privacy that even larger Park Avenue co-ops rarely deliver, and a direct consequence of the one-home-per-floor plan.

On board policy, the building's terms are well established. The cooperative permits financing of up to 50% of the purchase price and allows co-purchasing. A flip tax of 3% applies, paid by the buyer. As with any cooperative of this caliber, purchases clear through a board application, financial review, and interview, and the building is run for full-time, owner-occupied residency. Pet and sublet specifics are governed by the house rules and should be reviewed at the point of contract.

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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2023) cleared a median $857/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 8.6% 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 1-01413-0004) 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.

The buy case is distinctive: a full-floor home with a private elevator landing in a fifteen-unit Art Deco house — a configuration that combines the privacy of a townhouse floor with the service of a Park Avenue doorman building. The pre-war detailing, the wood-burning fireplaces, and the Plaza-salvaged mantels give the apartments real character, and the corner location at 78th Street puts Central Park, Madison Avenue, and the Museum Mile within a short walk.

Plan for a cooperative purchase at the avenue's standard: a board package, a financial review, and an interview, with financing capped at 50% of the purchase price and a 3% flip tax payable by the buyer at closing — both figures worth building into your underwriting from the outset. Because the building is small, the financials and capital plan deserve close attention: a fifteen-unit co-op spreads the cost of facade, elevator, and mechanical work across few shareholders, so review the reserve fund and any assessment history before committing. The reward is a scarce full-floor Park Avenue home in a building most buyers never get a chance at.

A sale at 891 Park is sold on the floor-through layout, the private landing, and the Art Deco provenance. The story — fifteen apartments, one per floor, wood-burning fireplaces, Plaza Hotel mantels, a 1931 Hess design — is unusually marketable and reaches the specific pool of buyers who shop full-floor Park Avenue cooperatives.

Comparable analysis should lean on the building's own history and the small set of full-floor and near-full-floor Park Avenue co-ops nearby rather than on larger multi-line buildings, since the configuration here is the differentiator. Presentation of the original Deco detail, the renovated systems where present, and the privacy of the private-landing plan is what carries a listing to the top of its range — and the 50% financing cap and 3% flip tax should be disclosed clearly so prospective buyers underwrite accurately from the start.

If you're considering 891 Park Avenue, these nearby Park Avenue cooperatives form a useful comparison set:

• 888 Park Avenue — pre-war co-op directly opposite
• 895 Park Avenue — Lenox Hill cooperative peer
• 875 Park Avenue — pre-war Park Avenue co-op nearby
• 898 Park Avenue — Park Avenue cooperative a block north
• 910 Park Avenue — premier Park Avenue co-op to the north

The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in Park Avenue, the Upper East Side, and the full-floor and pre-war cooperative market across the corridor's most discreet houses. We publish this profile because the buyers and sellers of a full-floor home like those at 891 Park are best served by deep, building-specific intelligence — the architecture, the layout, the board terms, and where the pricing sits in the avenue's full-floor tier.

If you're considering a purchase or sale at 891 Park Avenue, a confidential consultation is the right starting point.