- Year built
- 1930
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 136
- Floors
- 27
- Landmark
- Designated
- Pets
- Cats and small dogs typically permitted; confirm specifics
- Subletting
- Restrictive; minimum holding period and per-sublet board approval
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 3BR median
- $7M
- Recent range
- $925K – $14.7M
- Avg vs. ask
- -4.5%
- Recorded transfers
- 102
The San Remo is the architectural precedent for the twin-towered Manhattan apartment building. The San Remo at 145–146 Central Park West is the building that originated the Central Park West twin-tower tradition and anchored the corridor's signature architectural register. Emery Roth's 1930 design — two ten-story octagonal towers rising from a 17-story base, terminated with classical Roman temples — established the silhouette that the Eldorado, the Majestic, and the Beresford would each interpret in their own ways over the following years. Among Manhattan's pre-war landmarks, the San Remo's twin towers are the most identifiable from a distance, and its cultural significance has been continuous since opening. The 27-story cooperative occupies the full Central Park West blockfront between 74th and 75th Streets, with twin temple-capped towers rising eleven stories above a seventeen-story podium. The building's silhouette, visible from substantial portions of Central Park, from across the Park on the Upper East Side, and from much of the surrounding Upper West Side, has become one of the most-recognized Manhattan apartment-building forms.
The building's resident roster across nearly a century has included senior figures across the arts, finance, media, and political life. Its board is among the more rigorous on CPW. Its inventory turns over slowly. Apartments at the San Remo are bought and held; they pass between owners through careful processes that the building's institutional culture maintains.
Origins and history. The San Remo was developed by a syndicate headed by Senator Henry W. Pollock, announced November 28, 1928 with $7 million in investment (roughly $130 million in current dollars). Emery Roth was simultaneously designing the Beresford and (as consultant) the Eldorado — producing three of the four canonical CPW twin-tower trophies in a 24-month window. The building was completed September 1930 for October 1 occupancy.
Notable original residents and events. Composer Stephen Sondheim was born to original residents Herbert Sondheim (clothing manufacturer) and Etta Janet Fox the year they moved in. Other early residents included Sol Brill (movie theater owner) and Sara Shubert Davidow (sister of the Broadway Shubert brothers). Boxer Jack Dempsey nearly died of gangrenous appendicitis at the building on June 29, 1939 — reportedly "one hour from death." A building strike confronted John Barrymore on his January 1939 move-in, and February 1939 saw a foiled kidnap attempt on Harry Bijur's 15-year-old son.
The San Remo's resident roster across the past half-century has anchored a substantial portion of the Manhattan arts, music, film, and entertainment leadership demographic. Specific public reporting and documented public records have identified residents including:
Steven Spielberg has been resident at The San Remo across an extended period, with reporting indicating ownership of multiple apartment configurations across the building's history.
Bono (Paul David Hewson, lead vocalist of U2) has been resident at the building, with widely reported ownership of a substantial tower penthouse acquired in the late 1990s.
Demi Moore has been resident at the building across multiple periods of her career.
Diane Keaton has been resident at the building across an extended period.
Glenn Close, Bruce Willis, Steve Martin, Marisa Tomei, Tina Turner, Donna Karan, and a broader arts-and-entertainment demographic have anchored the building's residential character across the past several decades.
The pattern that emerges from the documented residential history: The San Remo's buyer pool is concentrated in the senior tier of the arts, music, film, theater, and entertainment industries, with the cooperative's evaluative culture having accommodated the demographic across its modern history. The building's cultural register has anchored both the corridor's creative-leadership demographic and the broader Manhattan residential context in which Central Park West operates as the structural alternative to the Park Avenue institutional-finance tradition. For buyers who care about the architectural canon of CPW, the San Remo is one of the four definitive choices (along with the Beresford, the Eldorado, and the Majestic). For those evaluating tier-one CPW co-ops, the San Remo's specific signature — twin Roman temples atop octagonal towers, the most globally photographed CPW silhouette — gives it cultural reach that some peers don't quite match.
Architecture and unit composition
Emery Roth's San Remo design, executed at the peak of his prewar Manhattan luxury practice, addressed a structural design challenge: how to apply the Beaux-Arts and Italian Renaissance twin-bell-tower vocabulary — most familiar from European cathedrals and civic buildings — to an American luxury apartment house. The 1929 site at 145–146 Central Park West, occupying the full blockfront between 74th and 75th Streets, offered the substantial frontage and lot depth necessary for the typology.
Roth's solution: a seventeen-story podium spanning the full blockfront, with two eleven-story towers rising above the podium, each capped by a temple-form rotunda inspired by the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. The towers are positioned at the building's northern and southern corners, set back from the Central Park West frontage; the podium's residential apartments occupy the building's lower floors, with the tower apartments above. The full-blockfront massing and the twin-tower silhouette produce a building that reads, from across the park and from the surrounding neighborhood, as a single substantial architectural composition.
Apartments range from compact two-bedrooms (1,200–1,800 sf) to substantial multi-bedroom configurations (3,000–6,000 sf), with the highest-floor tower units offering 360-degree views from the building's twin caps. Typical pre-war signatures throughout: 11–13 foot ceilings, formal entry galleries, library-living combinations, kitchens that have been renovated multiple times across the building's history. The most-significant apartments in the towers, particularly the tower penthouses, include substantial outdoor terraces with direct sight lines into Central Park.
Park-facing apartments occupy the eastern flank — direct Central Park views from low to mid floors, expanding to broader views as floor altitude rises. The corner Park-facing units (Park + cross-street exposure) command meaningful premium. The tower units, with their distinctive octagonal floor plates, are among the most prized apartments in any pre-war CPW building.
The San Remo's architectural success directly catalyzed the broader Central Park West twin-tower tradition. The Beresford (Roth, 1929, three towers), The Eldorado (Roth and Margon & Holder, 1929–1931, twin towers), The Majestic (Chanin and Margon & Holder, 1930–1931, twin towers), and The Century (Chanin, 1931, twin towers) all followed within two years, establishing the typology as the corridor's signature architectural register.
Building operations
The San Remo operates as a full-service cooperative with the institutional amenity package consistent with its architectural and cooperative tier — 24-hour doorman, concierge, full-time superintendent, full-service residential management. The building's substantial size (122 apartments distributed across the podium and towers) supports a comprehensive operational infrastructure.
The cooperative board's evaluative culture has, across the building's history, accommodated the arts-and-entertainment buyer demographic that anchors the corridor more broadly. Application review at The San Remo applies the standard cooperative financial-and-personal-fit criteria; the building's cooperative culture has, by Manhattan tier-one cooperative standards, demonstrated greater flexibility on conventional financial-profile patterns than the equivalent Park Avenue cooperatives. The building's most-publicized rejection — reportedly that of Madonna in 1985, with subsequent reporting attributing the rejection partly to the board's concern about paparazzi traffic — illustrates the cooperative's calibration: the cultural-fit assessment can result in rejection even of substantially-qualified applications when the board's specific concerns about the building's residential character are not satisfied.
Building policies on financing percentages, subletting, pied-à-terre use, alteration agreements, and pet permissions are calibrated to the cooperative's culture and should be confirmed directly with the managing agent during due diligence. The building's financial profile — the underlying mortgage structure, the reserve position, recent assessment history, and the building's Local Law 97 planning — should be examined at the application stage.
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 | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 5, 2026 | 4C | 4 BR · 5.5 BA · Central Park · Renovated by Hottenroth + Joseph; three entertaining rooms Closed Feb 19, 2026 (recorded Mar 4) at $14.74M. 4 BR / 5.5 BA configuration with Central Park views; architectural renovation by Hottenroth + Joseph with three entertaining rooms. The same #4C previously traded at $21.5M in November 2016 — a striking 31.4% nominal decline across 9.3 years on this specific Park-facing apartment, one of the steepest same-apartment comp curves at the building's tier. | $14,740,000 | off-mkt |
| Feb 17, 2026 | 8C | 4 BR · 4 BA Closed Feb 4, 2026 at $9.5M — 5% under the $10M asking. 8th-floor C-line, typically Central Park-facing. Tight discount-to-ask on the mid-floor C-line. | $9,500,000 | -5.0% |
| Oct 1, 2025 | 12F | Closed Sep 15, 2025 at $4.45M (recorded transfer; no public public listing data listing on record). F-line side-street exposure; pricing aligns with renovated non-Park-facing inventory. | $4,450,000 | off-mkt |
| Jan 27, 2025 | 1B | Closed Jan 15, 2025 at $925K (studio configuration). Lower-floor compact apartment well below the building's median trade — likely a maid's room or staff configuration. | $925,000 | off-mkt |
| Dec 20, 2024 | 12B | 2 BR · 3 BA Closed Dec 9, 2024 at $3.35M — 4.29% under the $3.5M asking. 12th-floor B-line 2BR. | $3,350,000 | -4.3% |
| Jan 10, 2024 | 2G | 3 BR · 2.5 BA Closed Jan 9, 2024 at $4.995M — full-ask, 0% off. 2G — 3BR G-line. Clean full-ask trade on lower-floor G-line inventory. | $4,995,000 | +0.0% |
| Nov 21, 2023 | 11F | 2 BR · 2.5 BA Closed Nov 16, 2023 at $3.075M. F-line at 11; renovated side-exposure inventory benchmark. | $3,075,000 | off-mkt |
| Sep 21, 2023 | 10A | 2 BR · 3 BA Closed Aug 31, 2023 (recorded Sep 18) at $3.5M — 12.39% under the $3.995M asking. 10A 2BR A-line; the wider discount-to-ask reflects 2023 marketing-time pressure on the A-line below-trophy inventory. | $3,500,000 | -12.4% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2022) cleared a median $3,125/sf across 2 sales. Sales close on average -4.8% below 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.
Other recent transfers
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 27, 2021 | 13B | $4,050,000 |
| Aug 26, 2021 | 7CC | $2,360,000 |
| Jan 26, 2021 | 6C | $6,250,000 |
| Jul 1, 2019 | 3C | $14,500,000 |
| Aug 28, 2018 | 5G | $4,325,000 |
| Jun 1, 2018 | 9F | $4,300,000 |
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 1-01127-0029) 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 architectural and cultural pedigree is the structural feature. The San Remo's combination of Emery Roth's twin-tower design, the building's position as the originator of the Central Park West twin-tower tradition, the substantial resident roster, and the corridor's most-iconic Manhattan apartment-building silhouette together constitute the building's structural premium.
Board approval is rigorous. The San Remo's board reviews both finances and lifestyle fit carefully. Strong personal references, primary-residence intent, and conservative financial profiles are advantageous. Foreign buyers face additional scrutiny. The cooperative culture is calibrated to the corridor's arts-and-entertainment demographic — buyers should expect substantive board review of the application with both standard financial qualification criteria and the cultural-fit assessment that the board applies to ensure alignment with the building's resident demographic. The building's cooperative review, while institutionally substantial, accommodates the kind of creative-and-entertainment career patterns that the tier-one Park Avenue cooperatives have historically not.
Pied-à-terre approval is exceptional. The board generally requires primary-residence buyers; pied-à-terre cases are rarely approved.
The apartment inventory is heterogeneous. Podium apartments and tower apartments operate on substantially different pricing logics; tower penthouses with direct Park views and outdoor terrace access command the building's most substantial premiums. Pricing requires apartment-specific comparable analysis at the apartment-line level.
Renovation requires care. Landmark status and the building's age combine to constrain alteration scope. Buyers planning substantial renovation should review the alteration agreement and engage architects with prior San Remo experience.
Capital posture is solid. The San Remo has historically maintained healthy reserves and steady capital planning. LL97 readiness is in active planning. Maintenance has tracked CPW pre-war averages.
View permanence is excellent. Central Park is across the avenue; West 74th and 75th are residential streets with stable building heights. Long-term view permanence is essentially absolute.
Financing rules and post-closing liquidity requirements are calibrated to the building's cooperative culture. Both should be confirmed with the managing agent before structuring the offer.
Subletting and pied-à-terre policies are restricted. The building operates as a community of resident shareholders; buyers whose use case is not aligned with primary-residence intent should consider alternative buildings or building categories.
Confirm specifics directly with management. Pet policy, alteration-agreement scope, working-capital contribution, flip-tax structure, and recent capital-assessment history should all be confirmed against the offering plan and current board policies during due diligence.
What to know if you’re selling
Marketing should emphasize the architectural and resident-history pedigree. Emery Roth's twin-tower design, the building's position as the originator of the corridor's twin-tower tradition, the resident demographic, and the apartment's specific position within the building's inventory. Apartment-specific marketing should foreground the floor, exposure, view, configuration, condition, and (for tower apartments) the outdoor terrace and Park-view characteristics that distinguish the unit.
Pricing is tier-one. Apartments compete primarily with the Beresford, Eldorado, and Majestic — and (for non-co-op alternatives) 15 CPW. Marketing benefits from the building's name recognition and from broker familiarity with the board's approvability profile.
Pricing requires apartment-level comparable analysis. The unit-to-unit variation between podium and tower apartments, between high-floor and lower-floor apartments, and between Park-facing and non-Park-facing exposures is substantial; recent comparables on the specific apartment line, exposure, and configuration should anchor the marketing approach.
The buyer pool is durable and corridor-specific. The San Remo's buyer pool is the arts, music, film, and entertainment demographic; marketing should reach that pool through targeted channels rather than through general residential listing distribution. Foreign-buyer participation is limited by board approval realities. Sellers should expect a U.S.-based primary-residence buyer pool with strong financial profiles.
Mansion tax cliff effects matter. Apartments routinely transact above the $5M threshold; tower units above $10M. Run pricing through the Mansion Tax Calculator.
Board approvability is the second pricing dimension. A buyer at price A who will not clear the board is, from the seller's economic perspective, a buyer at price zero. Marketing should calibrate the buyer evaluation in tandem with the price discussion.
Closing timelines are co-op standard. 4–8 weeks from contract signing to closing.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering The San Remo, also evaluate:
- The Beresford (211 CPW) — Roth, three towers, comparable tier
- The Eldorado (300 CPW) — Art Deco twin-tower landmark
- The Majestic (115 CPW) — Art Deco twin-tower landmark
- 15 Central Park West — newer condo alternative; condo flexibility, similar architectural seriousness
- The Dakota (1 W 72nd) — adjacent CPW co-op, very different aesthetic
- 740 Park Avenue — east-side equivalent
The Roebling Team at The San Remo
The Roebling Team at Compass works the Central Park West corridor as a structural element of our Manhattan luxury practice. We publish this building profile because San Remo buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — architectural attribution, cooperative culture context, resident-history calibration, and apartment-line comparable analysis — not generic CPW commentary.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at The San Remo, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point. We'll bring the full context this page provides plus the transactional specifics your situation requires — financial structuring, board approvability assessment specifically calibrated to The San Remo's evaluative criteria, comparable analysis at the apartment line, and the pacing strategy that fits your timeline.
Corey Cohen · The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $215,509/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $130