995 Fifth Avenue (The Stanhope)
995 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028
- Year built
- 1926
- Type
- Cooperative with condominium-style flexibility — market records describe it as a condop
- Units
- 35
- Floors
- 17
- Landmark
- Designated
- Amenities
- 24-hour doorman and concierge, La Palestra-designed fitness and spa facility of roughly 2,500 square feet with treatment rooms, library and billiards room, breakfast lounge, backup generator, bicycle and stroller storage; wood-burning fireplaces and herringbone floors survive in select residences
995 Fifth Avenue is the Metropolitan Museum's opposite number: a 1926 Rosario Candela tower in Georgian-toned brick over a limestone base, standing at the corner of 81st Street where the Met's Fifth Avenue steps spill across the avenue. For most of a century it was the Stanhope Hotel — among the most storied small hotels in New York — and since 2008 it has been one of the scarcest ownership propositions on the avenue: Candela architecture, museum-front position, and condominium-style purchase flexibility in a corridor whose pre-war inventory is otherwise governed by demanding cooperative boards. Market records describe the structure as a condop — a cooperative with condo-style by-laws — and listing records document pied-à-terre, LLC, and trust ownership in practice. Within the Fifth Avenue pre-war stock between 59th and 96th Streets, that combination is nearly unique; 1049 Fifth Avenue, another hotel conversion a half-mile north, is the closest conceptual peer.
The hotel history is substantial and press-documented. The Stanhope opened in 1927, passed through the hands of developer Benjamin Winter and then a consortium of banks after his 1932 default, and settled into decades as a discreet luxury address whose Rembrandt Room cabaret and sidewalk café were Upper East Side institutions. Charlie Parker died in the hotel in March 1955, in the suite of the jazz patroness Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter — one of the most retold events in jazz history. The later ownership chain reads like a case study in hotel economics: developer Gerald Guterman's Hanover Companies bought it for $19 million in 1986, spent a reported $26 million on a Louis XV-style renovation with plans to sell rooms as cooperatives, and filed for Chapter 11 in 1988 — a fall covered by The New York Times. Japan's Tobishima bought it at the 1988 bankruptcy auction for $76 million and sold a decade later for $15 million; Hyatt paid $65 million in 1999 and ran it as The Stanhope Park Hyatt until closing the doors on January 13, 2005.
Extell Development's conversion — executed by CetraRuddy — turned 132 hotel keys into 26 principal residences plus a band of studios, preserving wood-burning fireplaces and pre-war proportions while rebuilding systems. Early sales were slow enough that The New York Times covered the lag in 2006 ("A Classic Candela With a Storied Past, but Few Takers"); the building subsequently found its market emphatically, producing some of the avenue's most press-covered listings, including a penthouse offered at $65 million in 2010 and a $30 million contract reported by The Real Deal in 2012.
The single most important structural fact for buyers is the ground lease. The corporation owns the building but leases the land, with the lease — extensions exercised — running to November 30, 2154 per the audited financial statements on file. That is a long-dated lease by any standard, which mutes the classic land-lease reset risk, but the scheduled rent steps (to $2.765 million in 2022 and $3.16 million in 2043) flow directly through maintenance, and the lease economics belong at the center of any diligence here.
Architecture and unit composition
Candela's envelope is quieter than his Park Avenue trophies — a 17-story brick shaft with restrained Georgian detail — but the position does the talking: west exposures face the Met and Central Park across the avenue, with protected light over the museum's roofline and the park beyond. The conversion plan distributes roughly two residences per floor through the midsection, full-floor scale at the top of the building (listing records describe the 16th-floor residence, occupying the former ballroom level, at roughly 8,360 square feet), a duplex penthouse with landscaped terraces, and the studio band on the lower floors — former staff and hotel rooms that now serve as the building's entry price point and as staff or guest quarters for larger units. Interiors retained pre-war signatures — herringbone floors, working fireplaces in select units — over rebuilt mechanicals.
Building operations
Full-service at the trophy standard: 24-hour doorman and concierge, live-in resident manager, the La Palestra-designed fitness and spa facility with treatment rooms, library and billiards room, breakfast lounge, backup generator, and bicycle and stroller storage. Brown Harris Stevens Residential Management served as managing agent at the date of the financial statements on file. The corporation carries no underlying mortgage per those statements; ground rent and real estate taxes are the dominant expense lines, which is the correct lens for evaluating maintenance levels here. The audited financial statements are on file in The Roebling Research Library and available to clients during diligence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $55,947/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $133
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 4, 2026 | 10S | $10,750,000 |
| Aug 1, 2025 | 16 FL | $22,000,000 |
| May 9, 2024 | S16 | $8,100,000 |
| Mar 26, 2024 | 14A | $5,950,000 |
| Feb 22, 2024 | 7S | $11,300,000 |
| Oct 12, 2022 | 3N | $10,600,000 |
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 1-01492-0069) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
The flexibility is the headline — verify its current terms. Condo-style purchase mechanics in a Candela building opposite the Met is a proposition the surrounding co-ops structurally cannot match: pied-à-terre use, LLC and trust ownership, and a materially lighter approval posture per listing records. Confirm the current by-laws and approval process with the managing agent rather than relying on market shorthand.
Underwrite the ground lease like the asset it is. The lease runs to 2154 per the audited statements on file — long enough that financing and resale function normally — but the rent steps are real (the 2043 step is already scheduled) and they flow through maintenance. Your attorney should review the lease terms and the offering plan's escalation formula; we provide the financial statements from the Research Library as the starting point.
Maintenance reflects ground rent plus taxes, not debt. There is no underlying mortgage per the statements on file. Compare carrying costs against fee-simple buildings on that basis — run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator on the specific unit before judging the monthly number.
Know which building you're buying within the building. The studio band, the mid-floor residences, and the full-floor/penthouse tier are three different markets with different buyer pools and different $/sf. Price the line, not the address.
Plan for the fee stack. The 2 percent transfer fee to the corporation is documented in the audited statements on file; listing records describe it as purchaser-paid. Confirm allocation and any additional fees at offer stage, and run the Mansion Tax Calculator — nearly every trade here crosses multiple thresholds.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the scarcity with precision. Candela, the Met-front corner, the 2154 lease horizon, and condo-style mechanics in a co-op corridor — these are verifiable structural facts, and the buyer pool for them is international. The marketing should make the ground-lease case affirmatively rather than waiting for buyer's counsel to raise it.
Pre-package the diligence. Ground-lease buildings lose deals in the document phase. We put the financial statements, the lease schedule, and the fee structure in front of serious buyers' attorneys early; transactions here close on preparation.
Anchor to same-line and conversion-peer history. Building-average $/sf is meaningless across the studio-to-ballroom-floor spread. The correct comparables are this building's own line history and the avenue's conversion peers — 1049 Fifth above all — which we maintain in the Research Library.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 995 Fifth Avenue, also evaluate:
- 1049 Fifth Avenue — the other Museum Mile hotel-to-residence conversion; the most direct conceptual peer, with condominium rather than condop mechanics
- 998 Fifth Avenue — McKim, Mead & White's landmark co-op directly across 81st Street; the white-glove co-op alternative at the same corner
- 1001 Fifth Avenue — the Philip Johnson-fronted condominium one block north; the fee-simple condo alternative
- 1009 Fifth Avenue — landmarked pre-war opposite the Met
- 990 Fifth Avenue — boutique pre-war co-op neighbor to the south
- 980 Fifth Avenue — the full-service post-war alternative two blocks south
- The Pierre — grand-hotel residential living further down the avenue; the hotel-service alternative
- The Plaza — the city's benchmark hotel-to-residence conversion; the comparison buyers inevitably make
The Roebling Team at The Stanhope
The Roebling Team at Compass works the Fifth Avenue and Upper East Side corridors as part of our broader park-facing Manhattan practice, with particular depth in conversion buildings and ground-lease diligence. We publish this building profile because 995 Fifth Avenue buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — lease mechanics, conversion documentation, and line-level comparables — not generic neighborhood commentary.
If you're considering a transaction at 995 Fifth Avenue, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.