550 Park Avenue: A 1917 Carpenter Co-op at East 62nd Street

550 Park Avenue is a 17-story prewar cooperative that J.E.R. Carpenter designed and completed in December 1917 at the southwest corner of East 62nd Street.

It stands inside the Upper East Side Historic District, and as a co-op its board decides who may buy, which shapes an overseas purchase more than the address does. Here is what buying there involves.

1. What the Building Is

550 Park Avenue is a 17-story prewar cooperative at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and East 62nd Street, in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side. It also carries the side-street addresses 54 to 60 East 62nd Street and is known by its number rather than a name.

J.E.R. Carpenter, who lived from 1867 to 1932, designed it. Construction ran from May 1916 to December 1917, and it was converted to a cooperative in 1952. The city's property record lists 35 residential units, a low count for seventeen floors, and classes the building as an elevator cooperative.

Its tax block runs west to Fifth Avenue, which puts Central Park two avenue blocks away, beyond Madison Avenue. The building lies within the Upper East Side Historic District, designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1981. On East 62nd Street it stands beside the Browning School.

The location is on Google Maps.

2. A Carpenter Building on the Yosemite Site

Before 550 Park Avenue, the corner held the Yosemite, an apartment house of 1887 to 1890 designed by McKim, Mead & White. The Landmarks Preservation Commission records that Carpenter's seventeen-story building, erected for the 550 Park Avenue Corporation, took its place in 1916 and 1917.

The design is neo-Renaissance: a rusticated two-story stone base, buff brick with terra-cotta detail above, and third-floor windows with iron balconies between paneled pilasters, with further balconies at the seventh and fourteenth floors. Diaperwork brick panels mark the fifteenth floor, and a projecting cornice crowns the roof.

The street around it has changed more than the building has. In 1928, the Commission notes, the sidewalk in front was narrowed from 22 feet to 15 feet and its grass plots removed, yet its report still describes Park Avenue as an elegant residential street of tall apartment houses set against low-scale side streets.

Ask which original details survive in the apartment you are considering, and which were replaced in later renovations.

3. Historic District Rules and Building Services

As part of the Upper East Side Historic District, the building needs Landmarks Preservation Commission review for most exterior changes to its facades. Replacement windows are judged against the Commission's standards, so an owner cannot change the look of a window alone, and the same review covers building-wide work the co-op itself undertakes.

Interior work needs a Commission permit when it requires a Buildings Department permit or affects the exterior. The co-op's alteration agreement sits on top of that, so a renovation plan should allow time for both the board's approval and the Commission's, as well as for the Buildings Department filing that often triggers the Commission's review.

Building services are those of a traditional Park Avenue co-op: listings describe a full-time doorman, common storage and a laundry room. They also describe pied-à-terre use as permitted, but rules of that kind are the board's to set and can change, so confirm them in writing before contract.

Ask the managing agent for the alteration agreement and house rules before planning any work.

4. Buying Here as an Overseas Purchaser

550 Park Avenue is a cooperative: buyers acquire shares, and the board approves each purchaser after a full financial package and an interview, and may decline without giving reasons. Co-ops commonly limit financing, entity and trust purchases, pied-à-terre use and subletting, so an overseas buyer faces more conditions than in a condominium.

The buyer pays New York's mansion tax on residential purchases of $1 million or more, on the whole price, at rates from 1% between $1 million and $2 million up to 3.9% at $25 million and above. Since July 2026 the city has also levied an annual pied-à-terre surcharge on high-value apartments that are no one's primary residence, and its administration is before the courts.

On a later sale, a foreign owner faces FIRPTA withholding of 15% of the gross price unless an IRS withholding certificate reduces it. A non-resident who is not a US citizen has only a $60,000 US estate tax exemption on US-situs assets unless a treaty provides more, so settle the ownership structure with tax counsel before contract.

Ask the managing agent for the board's current rules on financing and ownership in writing before you bid.

Recorded Sales: What the Public Record Shows

NYC's Department of Finance records every sale with its address and price. Between January 2023 and September 2026 it recorded 12 sales of co-op apartments at 550 Park Avenue, at a median price of $6.94 million. Half of them closed between $2.77 million and $9.51 million; the highest was $18 million.

A median across a whole building mixes small and large apartments, low floors and high ones, so it describes the building rather than any one residence. Use it to see how often apartments here change hands and where the building's prices sit. Price a specific apartment from recorded sales on the same line and floor range, which can be pulled from the deed records before you make an offer.

These are recorded deed prices, not asking prices, and none of them is a Reinvent NY transaction. A sale appears in the record weeks after closing, and a deed price can include a parking space or storage unit bought at the same time.

Final Thoughts: More Than a Century on the Corner

550 Park Avenue has stood on its corner for more than a century and still reads much as Carpenter designed it, with a stone base, buff brick and terra-cotta, and few apartments across seventeen floors. It dates from the early years of his New York work, which the Commission traces to 1912.

Before an offer, read the co-op's recent financial statements, the proprietary lease and the house rules, and ask about any underlying mortgage and planned capital work. Maintenance includes each apartment's share of the building's property tax and debt, so compare it with care against a condominium's common charges.

Price a specific apartment from recorded sales of comparable layouts rather than a building-wide figure, because layouts and exposures differ between lines. Listings have stated the financing allowance differently, from none to partial financing, so take the current policy from the managing agent, and ask whether the apartment has been combined or reconfigured.

Request the board package requirements and recent financial statements before you schedule a viewing.

Figures here describe the building, not any one apartment. Asking prices, monthly carrying costs, tax abatement status and sublet rules are established unit by unit from the offering plan, the most recent financial statement and the managing agent.

Reinvent NY Inc. provides real estate and business expansion consulting in New York. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice.

More buildings worth knowing: 100 Eleventh Avenue, 111 West 57th Street, 130 William. The full set is indexed under New York building profiles.