Tasteful friends: 66 East 79th Street, full-floor 9 room 1926 co-op, $6M
Under contract after a year on the market, the seller of the apartment was the home of former department store owners Bruce and Barbara Gimbel. Built in 1926, the building was designed by architects Pleasants Pennington & Albert W. Lewis. It's a somewhat ingenious plan with higher ceilinged rooms at the front and lower for the bedrooms at the rear.
From a quick estimate, the apartment is approximately 3400 square feet. It features a private elevator landing and a large south and west facing living room of 19' x 38', with wood paneling and moulded plaster ceiling in the Elizabethan taste. There is a south and east facing dining room at the front of the apartment behind which is a large kitchen and pantry with adjoining staff room and laundry room. The foyer stairs that lead down to the higher ceilinged front part of the apartment originally had a separate "Bed Room or Library" adjacent, this has been combined with the entry as a sort of library alcove. Across the rear of the apartment is a corridor opening to three bedrooms separated by two bathrooms. There are two additional bathrooms, one off the entry hall, the other within the service area adjacent the kicthen.
I love the apartment. It's a great variety of spaces with a lot of flexibility as to how you might use the spaces, and it's very bright and well laid out. To nitpick, the bedrooms have fitted carpets and some fussy wallpaper, and the kitchen is a little clinically functional -- I wouldn't go to the trouble to redo it, just make a few small changes to make it look a little less like a dental lab. It's a busy street, but inside, who would care. The co-op fees are $12,694/mo which would include property tax.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 19, 2025 3:27 PM
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Gimbel gossip
(Asking price was originally $6.7M, lowered over a year to $5.995M
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 19, 2025 9:49 AM
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And some historic floor plans, of an identical plan and some variations from 1926
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 19, 2025 9:56 AM
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There are two pictures of the kitchen, one of which is virtually staged - that is the one that looks like a dental lab. The real thing in the next picture is much nicer, if a bit dated, I'd just leave it like that. They have done the same with the dining room - two pictures, the first of which is virtually staged and is frankly awful, the second shows the real thing which is beautiful.
I'd leave the bedrooms pretty much the way they are, I like the wallpaper and wall to wall carpet actually makes sense in a bedroom as it gives a feeling of warmth. It is a good floorplan and a really lovely apartment, pity I neither afford the price nor the monthly fees, but if I was in this market this one would be a strong contender
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 19, 2025 11:50 AM
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for that money it is cramped and of little design note. Looks like Tudor City middle class.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 19, 2025 11:58 AM
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Would love to have so much space. Would prefer it not be on busy 79th street, but could manage.
To r3’s point — so many of the classic UES places get soulless renovations that strip out all character. Not that they don’t need to be updating, but the boring modern renovations are so bland.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 19, 2025 12:00 PM
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What would R.H. Macy say?
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 19, 2025 12:09 PM
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The article says its on the 15th floor but you can see trees out of some of the windows. I didn't know there were Sequoias on 79th Street.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 19, 2025 12:28 PM
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R8: Sixth floor. I think the far-fetched 15th floor may have mistaken the total number of floors for the floor that the apartment occupies.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 19, 2025 1:52 PM
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R4: There's also a virtually staged photo of the living room, painted white on white that's worse. It shows up in some but not all other listings. Even a few usually mindless realtors knew that it had gone too far. Curious, too how the virtual staging left unpainted just the fireplace surround and the somewhat goofy shallow shelf opposite it -- for framed selfies, maybe.)
I'm always surprised by the almost inevitably bad decision to present virtual staging for quality properties that are in excellent condition and accordingly priced.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 19, 2025 2:02 PM
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R10 shit that is bad. The AI that is creating these seems to have done all its machine learning from Chip and Joanna Gaines
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 19, 2025 2:28 PM
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