Schumacher’s showroom more gallery than sales office

The marketing team behind the Schumacher, a loft condominium conversion at 36 Bleecker Street in Noho, has decided to forgo a model apartment in favor of an art gallery-like on-site showroom, the New York Times reported. The 20-unit project has received letters of intent from buyers eyeing more than half its homes.

A former printing factory, the Schumacher offers buyers the chance to preview homes with renderings mounted like paintings on the walls and samples of bathroom finishes draped across the room like gems in a jewelry boutique.

Developer Roy Stillman’s artsy approach is not contrived, according to Douglas Elliman’s John Gomes, who along with partner Fredrik Eklund is handling sales.

“This is not a gimmick created from a marketing team that said, ‘Let’s sell the building this way,'” Gomes told the Times. “Here you had a developer who had a love affair with a building, who had a love affair with art, and friends in the art world that organically created something very special from the outside to the inside.”

As previously reported, the building will contain two- to four-bedroom lofts, priced from $3 million to $25 million.

Stillman found inspiration in the building’s elements, both exterior and interior, such as “bullet” glass, cast-iron details and barrel-vaulted ceilings.

“I think it is attractive to not be understood by everybody,” Stillman told the Times. “I think it is attractive to be understood by a few.” [NYT] —Zachary Kussin