A kinder, gentler co-op board will be asking about your comings and goings and combing through your tax returns, should you decide to purchase at River House, one of the city’s most fabled apartment buildings.
River House, the storied castle on East 52nd Street with a notoriously strict board, is apparently easing up — slightly — reports Michael Gross in February’s Avenue magazine.
“The board of this great building has woken up and smelled the coffee,” says Gross, who is writing a column for The Post’s Alexa Luxe Living section on Feb. 27. “And maybe River House will be a contender for one of the great buildings of New York again.”
The main reason for the about-face? Probably because the 79-unit building has 10 listings currently on the market, ranging in price from $3.5 million to $12.5 million, some of which have been languishing there for a decade.
“I think they had two problems,” Gross says. “Number one was the perception of the neighborhood.” River House, situated on the East River, is fantastic for a buyer who cares about views — and hugely inconvenient for a buyer who cares about access to everything else.
“Second,” adds Gross, “was the perception of the board . . . which was a history of turning people down.” He adds, “But I think some of those stories are apocryphal.”
Those said to have been turned away: Diane Keaton, Richard Nixon, Joan Crawford and Gloria Vanderbilt. Crawford, married to a Pepsi executive at the time, was apparently dinged by the Coca-Cola president who was on the board. (Crawford was said to have planted the Pepsi sign in Long Island City as her revenge.)
But, perhaps mindful of the fact that River House’s listings are not getting the love they deserve, the co-op board has brought on new members. “I didn’t expect to be able to talk to someone on the board,” says Gross, who simply reached out to one person in the building and never even expected to have his call returned. “I didn’t know a new board had been elected.”
And as he spoke to more residents, Gross got to ask which legends were true.“The answer is: They all didn’t know,” he says. “Or else they weren’t saying.”