‘The Way New Yorkers Live Today’

A look at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House.

by Hillary Larson
Special To The Jewish Week

Let’s face it, New Yorkers are ridiculous voyeurs, and nothing arouses our urge to watch like other people’s real estate. Walk down any street of brownstones at night and just try to resist peeping into the curtainless windows at the warmly lit luxury within: that dramatic red wall, elegant chandelier or built-in mahogany bookcase.
Beautiful rooms speak to all of our aspirational fantasies. With their strong aesthetic point of view, they hint at the life we might have if things had gone differently, a bevy of more glamorous narratives: the formal townhouse dining room, the hip bachelor’s lair, the urban pied-a-terre.
The Kips Bay Decorator Show House, an annual event that showcases the work of top interior designers, has drawn sophisticated viewers for 36 years

by capitalizing precisely on this fantasy. Two dozen design firms have temporarily taken over the units on two floors — one of them a penthouse floor — as well as the roof garden at Manhattan House, an elegant 22-story building at 200 E. 66th St. that is being converted from luxury rentals to condominiums.
About a third of the building is currently occupied by renters; the remaining units are in the process of being sold. According to the Web site, the Manhattan House draws on a tradition of “Grand Modernism” and takes lifestyle inspiration from none other than Grace Kelly. A landmark building designed by Gordon Bunshaft for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1952, it is billed as the largest residential conversion currently under way in the U.S.
In addition to being a divinely New York way to spend an afternoon, the Show House — on display through May 22 — is also a terrific New York City cause. The $30 admission fee benefits the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, a 93-year-old organization now headquartered in the South Bronx that provides after-school and enrichment programs for disadvantaged children throughout the city.
According to the promoters, the Show House draws a wide variety of lookers: designers seeking inspiration, prospective buyers checking out both building and decor, Boys & Girls Club supporters and that typical New Yorker who hops from one open house to the next on a Sunday afternoon.
Dolly Lenz, vice chairman at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate and the point person for Manhattan House sales, said the Boys & Girls Club contacts her each year to reserve a suitable “mansion” for the Show House.
“Number one, it has to be conveniently located,” said Lenz. “And number two, it has to bespeak luxury.”
While the Show House usually takes over an actual mansion, Lenz decided that 2008 was the year to rethink the formula.
“This Show House is about how people live in New York City today,” she explained. “It’s about how real people live. And only a tiny fraction of real people, even very rich people, live in a mansion.
“New Yorkers live in high-rises,” Lenz concluded. Manhattan House, at 22 stories, is fairly typical, she said. It also exemplifies the current vogue for converted luxury condominiums, whose multi-bedroom units are in high demand for today’s urban families.
Prices at Manhattan House range from a penthouse sold for eight figures to smaller units in the $1.5 million range, Lenz said. While the overall New York real estate market has notably lopsided areas of strength and weakness, sales are steady for amenity-laden new condos that meet the demand for what Lenz calls “livable housing, real homes.”
At Manhattan House, terraces and wall-size windows offer stunning wraparound views of the urban skyline, while open floor plans let design take center stage. This year’s Show House features such fantasies as Geoffrey Bradfield Inc.’s “An Art Dealer’s Bachelor Pad,” in which orange lacquer walls offset contemporary art and a wall of mirrors, or “La Cuisine Vivante,” a brown-and-lavender kitchen designed by celebrity chef Daniel Boulud with Bilotta Kitchens of New York.
“A Mod Sitting Room,” designed by Ian Halliday, David Katon and Tania Balafoutis for BKH New York, Inc., puts 1970s glamour on display with geometric shapes, organic materials like mohair and cowhide and chic period earth tones.
“Scarlett’s Dress,” a room designed by Nancy Ruddy for Cetraruddy, was “conceived as a fashion editor’s private aerie,” according to the press materials. It is where an imaginary fashion editor would find inspiration amid ball-gown-inspired silks, velvets, marble fixtures and silver-leaf linen walls hung with fashion sketches.
Lenz said that while sales units tend to be shown with the most neutral of decor — the thinking being that buyers need to be able to visualize themselves living there — the stylish interiors now gracing the Manhattan House have attracted more than one viewer to her sales office. Of particular note this year are the variety of intricate ceilings, and the emphasis on outdoor space.
As she put it: “It’s all about the way New Yorkers live today.”

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization