The new price on Roberta Flack’s Manhattan co-op apartment is $6.995 million. The apartment’s location—in the historic and wildly desirable Dakota building, which dates to 1884—was not enough to sell the 2,000 square foot residence for the initial asking price of $9.5 million, or even the last asking of $7.5 million.

The Dakota is one of the most famous residential buildings in the city, and not only for its association as the place of John Lennon’s murder. Having housed Judy Garland, Leonard Bernstein and William Inge, among others, the building’s board of directors is known for being increasingly and peculiarly selective: in 2005, they rejected an ownership bid by Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith, stopping the sale by Albert Maysles of his own apartment to the then-married couple.

Flack’s apartment is very bright. Three of the four fireplaces are limestone, light fixtures are modern, and floors are white oak; along with all the whitewash, they give the residence a clean, late century appeal. A third, living room fireplace has been revised in steel, and the old small-residence strategy of using mirrored walls to expand the main living space doesn’t really work, leaving the room a little chilly. Original hardwood doors and frames wait to be restored to their original luster, the 12-foot ceilings and walls feature original plaster moldings, and a slim balcony with wrought-iron balustrade runs along the apartment’s façade.

The Dakota was originally conceived as a unique collection of unique living spaces: in sandstone, and heavily ornamental, no two of the building’s original apartments were alike. It was designed around a center courtyard.

Jazz and R&B ballad stylist Roberta Flack had a string of hits in the 1970’s and 1980’s, including the classic number-one single ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,’ a staple of FM radio for decades. She has kept the apartment at the Dakota since 1975.