778 Park Avenue

If you were a fly on the wall, this would have been quite the glamorous place to be over the last eighty years.

Imagine attending the wedding in 1933 of New York socialite Veronica Balfe, who got married at her apartment to Gary Cooper so as to avoid the paparazzi of the day.

The heated political discussions that were ongoing in the maisonette apartment of William F Buckley especially when he ran for mayor of New York in 1965.  To relieve traffic congestion he proposed charging a fee for cars entering the city and lobbied for the development of a network of bicycle lanes.

Photo:  Huffington Post

Or the chatter in the dining room above at Brooke Astor’s apartment, where four weeks after he was elected president of the United States, Ronald Reagan was beneath the table looking for her diamond earring.

Photo:  Stribling.com

My favorite story about 778 Park Avenue involves the penthouse above.  Apparently when the owner recently passed away it was requested in their will that Elizabeth Stribling be the broker to represent the sale of their home.  Ms. Stribling the owner of her ubiquitous firm no longer personally sells real estate.  However she was very flattered by the compliment and agreed to handle the property with her daughter Elizabeth Ann.

778 Park Avenue building is considered one of  Rosario Candelas masterpieces.  Construction began right before the great stock market crash of 1929.   At one point in the summer of 1930 work was temporarily halted for financial reasons.  Despite the fact that it is today considered one of the city’s premiere addresses, back then they could not sell the eighteen full floor apartments.  In 1931 the New York Times had them listed as reduced to between $68,000 and $144,000 and in December of that year only four families were in residence.

Above is the plan of the third floor which previously belonged to Vera Wang and sold on January 3rd 2008 for 33.6 million dollars.  Candela liked to make the entrance foyer of his apartments a full size room so that a visitor got a full sense of the grandeur of the apartment immediately on arrival.  The entrance gallery above is thirty six foot long by ten foot wide.

Photo:  The Real Estalker

It is  ironic that the most recent sale in the building has also been a casualty of a stock market crash. The apartment of the late Brooke Astor came on the market offered at forty six million dollars before eventually going to contract at a price below twenty nine million dollars.

778 Park Avenue has been the home of many American icons.   Brooke Astor, Estee Lauder, William F Buckley and Vera Wang among others.  If you would like to be a member of that group, you should know that the board does not allow financing and your net worth and social pedigree will have to be quite substantial for approval.

This entry was filed under Buildings, Classic and tagged with 778 park avenue, brooke astor, rosario candela, vera wang. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.