Enjoy utmost privacy with these NYC listings with direct elevator access

Many residences at the newly-opened condo 611 West 56th Street have direct elevator access (Corcoran)In many elevator buildings, it is common practice for residents to get on the elevator, press a button for their floor, and walk a few feet to their front door. Some, though, have gone one step further with the elevator opening directly into the apartment.

This feature is described in listings as a key-locked elevator for its mechanism: Residents get on an elevator that serves all units; but rather than pressing a floor button, they insert the key that corresponds to their specific floor. Then, and only then, the elevator takes them to that floor. It also works in reverse: When residents of homes with key-locked elevators are having friends or service professionals up, they can send the elevator down, call it up from their floor, and send their guests directly up.

Safety is often the first question among people who are unfamiliar with this feature, but the elevator keys only access the unit they correspond to. Moreover, the elevator physically will not move unless a key is inserted, which offers another barrier in buildings that might not have door staff. An unduplicatable elevator key is the most frequent point of access, but some tech-savvy buildings have begun to use key cards, key pads with unique codes, and even fingerprint access.

It should also be noted that some listings use "private" and "key-locked" to refer to the elevators as if the terms were interchangeable, but they in fact refer to two separate things. Private elevators are typically located apart from the main building elevator, service one unit (usually the penthouse), and only include buttons for the lobby, the apartment, and any amenity space in between. Key-locked elevators, though, serve all units in the building, but residents' keys only provide access to their apartments and nowhere else.

142 Flatiron, #3 (Compass)Historically, apartments reached via key-locked elevator have been most frequently found in industrial loft buildings that have been converted to residences with only one or two units per floor. However, a number of new developments – including 142Flatiron, Novum W26 in Chelsea, and 611 West 56th Street in Midtown – have begun to incorporate direct elevator entry.

338 Berry Street, #4E (Corcoran Group)

164 Bank Street, #3A (Compass)

26 Beaver Street, #4 (Sothebys International Realty)

473 Hicks Street, #4 (Douglas Elliman Real Estate)

125 Central Park North, #PH4 (Brown Harris Stevens Residential Sales LLC)

52 Park Avenue, #8 (Avenue 8 Inc)

Novum W26, #3 (Compass)

650 East 6th Street, #3 (Douglas Elliman Real Estate)

2061 Broadway, #4 (Brown Harris Stevens Residential Sales LLC)

330 East 57th Street, #3 (Brown Harris Stevens Residential Sales LLC)

26 Beaver Street, #15thFloor (Sothebys International Realty)

14 Clinton Street, #6A (Real New York)