Carter's Review

The 14-story building at 817 Fifth Avenue on the southeast corner at 63^rd Street is one of the more attractive and luxurious pre-war apartment buildings in New York City. 

Unlike its few peers at the top of the residential ladder, this one has managed to maintain quite a low profile over the years, at least as measured by celebrity-watchers. 

Palatial and finely detailed, this building has only 16 apartments and boasts a great location across from Central Park that is both close to Midtown and on a quiet street. 

It was designed in the very dignified, Italian Renaissance-palazzo style by George B. Post & Sons and is very complementary to the similar but substantially larger apartment across the street at 820 Fifth Avenue, one of the city's most prestigious addresses, which was designed by Starrett & Van Vleck. 

Both buildings were erected in 1916. 

This building was converted to a cooperative in 1974.

Bottom Line

This is one of the avenue’s major pre-war buildings close to Midtown and near the Central Park Zoo.

Description

Unlike 820 Fifth Avenue, this building has replaced its multi-paned windows with large picture windows, which makes for more dramatic views but at the same time detracts from its fine architecture. 

It has a four-story rusticated limestone base with a side-street canopied entrance, four bandcourses and a large cornice. The top bandcourse is quite wide and is notable for its diamond pattern. 

The building permits discrete window air-conditioners and replaced its multi-paned windows with large single-pane windows.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour doorman and concierge, residents’ storage, and a laundry. It is also pet-friendly.

Apartments

Apartments have wood-burning fireplaces, mahogany doors, marbled baths, large formal dining rooms, high ceilings and paneled libraries. 

A triplex maisonette with its own entrance on the avenue has a 24-foot-long foyer that opens onto a 20-foot-long library and a staircase that leads up to the second floor that has a 30-foot-long living room, a 25-foot-long dining room, an 18-foot-long kitchen, four bedrooms and a couple of servants’ rooms. The third level has a 32-foot-long gym. The apartment was bought from the estate of Dr. Anne Dyson, a pediatrician, in 2001 by Howard Solomon, the chairman of Forest Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company, for $14.5 million for his son, David Solomon, but the deal was canceled. The maisonette was also once occupied by Dr. Howard Diamond, a rhinoplasty specialist. It was subsequently acquired by Nancy Sale Johnson Rashad, the ex-wife of Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets football team. She put it on the market in early 2012 for $23 million.

History

An article by Katharine Clarke at therealdeal.com on February 21, 2013, noted that the building’s board of managers sent a letter to the Department of Buildings opposing plans by JHSF Participacoes SA, based in Brazil, to erect a 200-foot-high narrow building between it and the mid-block apartment building at 812 Fifth Avenue, some of whose residents were also opposed to the new building. The architect for the proposed building was Timothy Greer. The proposed structure would replace an existing 6-story building on the site. 

817 Fifth Avenue replaced two townhouses, one of which was designed by R. H. Robertson in 1885 for Charles T. Barney. 

Other residents of the building were Steve Wynn, who bought an apartment for $7 million in 2001 before subsequently listing it for sale in 2009 for $25 million. He eventually moved into the Residences at the Ritz Carlton at 50 Central Park West. 

According to the Real Deal article, Richard Gere sold his apartment in the building in 2004 for $8.75 million to Mariella and Edmond Safra, the nephew of Edmond Safra.