740 Park Avenue is aluxury cooperative apartment building on the west side ofPark Avenue betweenEast 71st and72nd Streets in theLenox Hill section of theUpper East Side ofManhattan, New York City, New York. It was described inBusiness Insider in 2011 as "a legendary address" that was "at one time considered (and still thought to be by some) the most luxurious and powerful residential building in New York City".[1] The"pre-war" building's side entrance address is 71 East 71st Street.[2]
The 19-story building was designed in anArt Deco architectural style and consists of 31 units, includingduplexes and triplexes.[1] The architectural height of the building is 256.0 feet (78.0 m).
The building was constructed in 1929 byJames T. Lee, the grandfather ofFirst LadyJacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis – who lived there as a child as Jacqueline Bouvier – and was designed byRosario Candela andArthur Loomis Harmon; Harmon became a partner of the newly namedShreve, Lamb and Harmon during the year of construction. The building was officially opened in October 1930, a year after theGreat Depression began, and the poor timing was devastating. Even though the New York elite had moved in, the building had failed financially by 1933. It remained in the red for 50 years.[3] It was not until the 1980s that the building's apartments sold for incredibly high prices.[1][4]
In 1937, one of the first well-known residents wasJohn D. Rockefeller Jr., who moved into 15/16B, a duplex that many still consider New York's crown jewel apartment. According to New York City real estate lore, "whoever inherits the biggest penthouse at 740 inherits the throne of New York society itself."[3][5] In 1971,Saul Steinberg bought that triplex for $285,000 (equivalent to $2,213,000 in 2024) and after two divorces sold it toStephen Schwarzman for "slightly above or below $30 million" in 2000. This was the highest price ever paid on Park Avenue[6] until May 2012, whenHoward Marks paid $52.5 million for two adjoining two-story duplexes (totaling 30 rooms), which set a short-lived record as the highest price ever paid for a co-op apartment.[7]
In 1979, the French government purchased an 18-room duplex for $600,000 to be used as theirUnited Nations ambassador's residence.[8] The French government's duplex unit was sold in June 2014 for $70 million, reportedly $22 million over the asking price – a bidding war involving three prospective buyers escalated the eventual selling price. The buyer was hedge fund billionaireIsrael Englander, who already lived in the unit directly above, and surpassed a record set just days earlier by Egypt's richest man,Nassef Sawiris, for a penthouse unit on nearbyFifth Avenue.[8]
Undergoing renovation in 2008
In 2005, authorMichael Gross published a detailed book on the building and its history,740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building. According to Gross, builder Lee's daughter,Janet Lee Bouvier, and son-in-lawJack Bouvier, attained the final open lease; according to one account, they did not pay for the lease.[9] Hedge fund manager David Ganek paid $19 million for the childhood duplex home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 2005.[10]
The residents of 740 Park were heavily affected by the2008 financial crisis, as many of the residents are hedge fund billionaires as opposed to the titans of industry like Rockefeller who moved in during the 1930s.[3] The building was once home to one of the world's largest private collections ofMark Rothko works.[10] The former owner—allegedBernie Madoff middleman and ex-financier J. Ezra Merkin—still lives there, but the paintings were sold during theMadoff scandal.
Hedge fund billionaire Charles Stevenson paid $9 million for an apartment in the building and was the head of the 740 Park Avenue cooperative in December 2011.[1]
David H. Koch andJulia Koch – businesspeople, co-owner and board member ofKoch Industries, occupied an 18-roomduplex on the fourth and fifth floors said to have been purchased in 2004 for $17 million[2]
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