740 Park Avenue

740 Park Avenue is a luxury apartment building on Park Avenue in Manhattan, which has been the home to many wealthy and famous residents. The building also carries the address 71 East 71st Street.

History

An apartment previously belonging to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., currently owned by Stephen Schwarzman, when sold by Saul P. Steinberg in 2000, brought a price "slightly above or below $30 million," reportedly the highest price ever paid on Park Avenue. Rockefeller moved to the building in 1937.

The apartment house has 31 units, and has the highest ceilings and widest hallways on Park Avenue. The exterior of the building is clad with limestone. It was built in 1929, designed by Rosario Candela and Arthur Loomis Harmon, the design partner of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. The builder was James T. Lee, grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Life in the building is amusingly described in the New York Social Diary.

In 2005, author Michael 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-law Jack Bouvier took the final open lease (according to one account, for free), and their daughter Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis grew up there.

Famous residents

* Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (wife of John F. Kennedy), childhood home.
* David H. Koch, occupies an 18-room duplex on the fourth and fifth floors said to have been purchased in 2005 for $17 million.
* Ronald Lauder, businessman (son of Estée Lauder and brother of Leonard Lauder).
* John D. Rockefeller, Jr., lived from 1937 to 1960 in a 24-room, 12-bath duplex.
* Steve Ross, late CEO of Time Warner
* Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group (who bought it from Saul Steinberg for just over $35 million).
* J. Ezra Merkin, Hedge-Fund Manager (son of late businessman Hermann Merkin).
* Irene Bouvier, american actress and socialite
* John Thain, last chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch.
* Thelma Chrysler Foy, automobile heiress.
* Arthur and Joseph Santry, CEOs of Combustion Engineering.
* Vera Wang, bridal gown designer who inherited a 10th and 11th floor duplex from her father, C.C. Wang.