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New York Post

Dakota co-op next to Yoko Ono's home has sold for $6.2M

Yoko Ono has a new neighbor at the Dakota. An apartment directly next to the longtime home of the artist and peace activist — and former residence of the late John Lennon — has sold for $6.2 million, The Post has learned. According to StreetEasy records, the four-bedroom, 2.5-bath co-op hit the market in June 2024 and sold for its asking price, marking a rare transaction inside the famously tight-knit Upper West Side building at 1 W. 72nd Street. Advertisement 9 A four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom apartment at Manhattan's iconic Dakota co-op has sold for its full asking price of $6.2 million, nearly a year after hitting the market. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman 9 The seventh-floor residence, once owned by the late copyright attorney Paul H. Epstein — whose clients included Leonard Bernstein (himself a onetime Dakota resident) and Rodgers & Hammerstein — sits directly next to Yoko Ono's longtime home. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman 'The apartment is a work of art and received multiple offers,' Daniela Kunen of Douglas Elliman, who held the listing, told The Post. Advertisement The seventh-floor residence belonged to the late Paul H. Epstein, a prominent copyright attorney whose client list once included cultural luminaries Leonard Bernstein and Rodgers & Hammerstein — both towering figures in 20th-century American music. The late Bernstein was also a onetime Dakota resident. Epstein purchased the unit in 2012 with his husband, Garry Parton, and lived there until his death in 2022 at age 81. 9 Epstein and his husband, Garry Parton, bought the apartment in 2012. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman 9 It features 13-foot ceilings, five fireplaces and views over the Upper West Side. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman Advertisement 9 The building, famed for its ornate architecture and storied past, has historically seen little turnover. Getty Images The new buyer has not yet been identified. The home's design mirrors the building's signature grandeur, with 13-foot ceilings, ornate wainscoting, five fireplaces and a formal gallery that unfolds into eight gracious rooms. A library currently staged as a dining room contains a discreet wet bar, and windows frame views of the Dakota's internal courtyard and the rooftops of the Upper West Side. Advertisement Despite its age — the building was completed in 1884 by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh of the Plaza Hotel fame — the Dakota remains one of the city's most exclusive and culturally charged addresses. 9 Though Ono, now 90, spends most of her time on a rural New York farm, her decades-long presence at the Dakota remains integral to its cultural aura. Getty Images 9 A photo of Yoko Ono in the lounge of the apartment she shared with John Lennon, one year to the day after he was murdered outside the Dakota building. Getty Images Ono first moved into the building in 1966 and remained there after Lennon's 1980 assassination outside its main entrance. While she now spends most of her time on a 600-acre farm in Franklin, NY, her presence and legacy remain integral to the co-op's mystique. At one point, she and Lennon occupied as many as five units in the building, using the space for living, storage, guests and Ono's studio. This sale is just the second at the Dakota this year, following the sale of the late Ilon Specht's home in February for $8.1 million. Specht was a pioneer for women in advertising, having written a successful television commercial for L'Oréal's Preference hair color in 1973. She passed away in May 2024 at the age of 81 from complications of endometrial cancer, according to the New York Times. 9 One of four bedrooms. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman 9 One of 2.5 bathooms. Robert Lowell for Douglas Elliman Advertisement Meanwhile, only one unit in the building is currently on the market — a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom residence listed for $17.5 million. It initially listed for $19 million in 2024. Though it lacks modern amenities like gyms or lounges, which today's buyers have demanded for years, the Dakota offers something few others can: a piece of living history. The Dakota 'doesn't need to appeal to everybody,' architectural historian Scott Cardinal previously told The Post. 'All it needs is 100 people who think it's awesome. I don't think it will ever have trouble finding people.'