Selling New York came down with a ragin’ case of stagin’ last night when two very different habitats required their rooms to be re-imagined. First, a broker works with a designer to doll up a tres cher Chelsea townhouse for a long-awaited open-house. Then, a pair of agents must convince a Harlem luxury building developer to pony up some cash so they can convert a model apartment into a supermodel sale. Will fists fly over a far-out sculpture? Will brokers literally wrestle a developer for a few grand? Yes and yes (in my SNY dreams). Take my hand as I lead you through the land of tricked out tables and tastefully decorated terraces. Oh, and p.s. we’re on a T-day break next week, so I’ll catch you post-gravy on 12/2!
FIRST-WORLD CRISIS #1: BROKER MUST MAKE $$$ CHELSEA TOWNHOUSE LOOK LIKE A MILLION BUCKS
CORE boss Shaun Osher is meeting up with project manager, Bruce Gallagher, at this towering Chelsea townhouse:
So! Tall! This pre-war building at 233 West 20th Street was originally a 2.5 story, but the developer decided to bump it up to 6 stories over the last five years. Shaun explains that he helped Bruce “identify” what the property should be, and they agreed it should be positioned as a humungous single-family residence—topping out at 7,000 square feet. With a $13.65 million price tag, Shaun says “there will be hell to pay if we don’t sell it.”
As construction finishes up, Shaun enlists CORE broker Tom Postilio to gussy up the guts. Tom hires designer Laurie Messman to sprinkle her furnishing talents all over the joint.
Laurie’s mind crackles with thoughts of harvest tables and an in-home art gallery:
Her design secret? She visualizes the space by sending style savvy lightning bolts from her hands. Those bolts totally reveal all:
Next, Tom and Laurie have a decorating date in a groovy Soho home store to look at pieces Laurie’s picked out:
With a mere touch of her hands, Laurie makes a table multiply!
Laurie’s key piece of staging advice for you wannabes? “You want to connect the potential buyer emotionally to the space,” she says. If that’s true, than if anyone wants me to buy a place, there better be fresh nachos on the kitchen table. WITH ALL THE FIXINS!
Back at CORE HQ, Shaun delivers some not great news to Tom. He just learned that he has a green subway station light growing out of his head (but he’s cheerful about it):
So sad. Oh, and Tom’s deadline for finishing up the interior design has been pushed up to Eeeksday! Bruce wants to launch the building nuh-nuh-nuh-now!!
It’s Staging Day and the movers are hauling in haute furnishings inside the townhouse. Laurie doesn’t love the time constraints, stating that “nothing is easy about New York.” She speaketh of the trutheth.
Uh-oh, it looks like a couple big-drinking penguins have crashed Staging Day. I wonder if they’re gonna hook-up:
What holiday comes after Staging Day? Open House Day! I always mix them up. It’s OHD and the townhouse is in full furnished glory. Replete with art gallery!
Ooh, and there was on-the-spot graffiti creation! By artist Malt:
Not my cuppa drawing, but an interesting open house idea. And some of us were there! Bruce is happy with the outcome of the staging and the swells of peeps there to peep around. Yay! But Naaaaay because, according to the update, the 5 bed/6.5 bathroom property’s been on the market for 9 weeks and still no offer. Sorry Laurie, maybe plastic furniture is the way to go?
Episode Grade: Did this episode eat T-day turkey early and fall asleep at the table? A dash of snazzy style, but overall a bit of a snoozer with one dull sale makes me give this one 2.5 out of 5 cackling sleepy Kleiers!