In a mansion that was once the residence of famed songwriter Irving Berlin, residential real estate brokers Richard Steinberg and Renée Bross Steinberg have carved out a home — literally.
That is, the Steinbergs live in one of six apartments hewn out of the 50-foot-wide, 25,000-square-foot mansion at 3 East 75th Street, which was the family home of Berlin’s wife, Ellin Mackay, and where he reportedly wrote “White Christmas.”
Both the Steinbergs — who work as a team that includes their daughter Sarah Fiszel at Warburg Realty — knew they’d found their home from the moment they caught sight of the seven-story limestone mansion’s crumbling first-floor library about five years ago.
Richard, a senior managing director at Warburg, had been inspecting the early 20th-century mansion with the developers, Dominion Management, advising them about purchasing and refurbishing it.
A broker since 1985 when he left the podiatry profession, Steinberg grosses over $100 million in sales annually, with a special expertise in selling opulent townhouses and mansions. He also frequently consults with developers and invests in development projects, often those in which townhouses are converted back into single-family homes. He is working as a development consultant on 180 East 93rd Street and on the conversion of the Claremont Stables on West 89th Street.
“When Richard showed me this place, which was in a state of disarray, I said to him that day, ‘Wow, we should live in a place like this one day,'” says Renée, who is a managing director at Warburg and tends to focus on co-op sales. “About a year and a half later, Richard came home one day and said, ‘I think you’re right. We should move to that place.'”
Richard, who counts among his achievements having sold the same townhouse three times in one year (a real estate feat he’s realized twice), says some apartments are just destined for certain people.
“I believe you match the purchaser with the property, and if they truly like the property, you don’t have to call them to hound them five times; you don’t have to get them to increase their bid; you don’t have to force them to do anything,” he says.
Besides such aesthetic touches as a wrought-iron fence and lobby with sweeping marble staircase, 3 East 75th Street also has a doorman and a concierge, and is only steps from Central Park. The triplex penthouse there sold for $20 million in August to James Chanos, the president and founder of the hedge fund Kynikos.
“I always think of this apartment as a Tiffany blue box with a white ribbon,” Renée says, referring to her own apartment in the building. “I think it’s a jewel. It’s not big, but there are very few comparisons to it. In real estate, everything is ‘what’s your comp?’ There is no comp to this.”
The 1,200-square-foot apartment was made from the original library and two small bedrooms. It’s a good size for the Steinbergs, whose two grown children are no longer at home. They merged the two bedrooms into one and combined the living room, dining room and kitchen in the former library space.
The library’s 16-foot ceilings with ornate molding enabled the couple to raise the kitchen by several feet. Because their apartment is so much smaller than their previous 3,500-square-foot home, the Steinbergs worked closely with designer Ken Alpert, a principal at KA Design Group, to maximize storage space.
As in a boat, there is hidden storage space, underneath their kitchen floor and in other places, accessed by doors camouflaged to resemble the walls. The Steinbergs chose multipurpose furniture, such as an elegant coffee table that slides back and doubles as a dining tray in front of the TV.
“We just wanted to feel like we were in this ultra-luxurious hotel suite,” Richard says. “That’s how we wanted to live.”
The lavish touches throughout the apartment, often accessories designed by Richard Mishaan, such as two round white vases in the living room, have helped achieve that. They also have two fur throws by Dennis Basso, one in the living room and one in the bedroom.
When the two existing bedrooms were combined into one, they ended up with such a large space that they were able to bring out the walls to create floor-to-ceiling closet space. The Steinbergs also closed up a window over the bed and incorporated a plush window seat in the bedroom.
“We only have a north- and a south-facing window, so we designed all the doors to be sheer, so when you come in it helps to reflect more light,” Renée says.
While the master bath was large enough for a tub and shower, the powder room of the apartment’s entrance was small, so the Steinbergs made it particularly showy, with fixtures by Waterworks and Maya Romanoff’s golden mother-of-pearl shells for wall tile. “It took them three days to lay these,” Richard says.
The Steinbergs didn’t want to use the apartment for formal entertaining, but with its close proximity to their offices on 76th Street, they knew they might periodically have people over for drinks.
“Our task was to come up with a look that would be exciting and appealing when they had company over, but also very comfortable, because 95 percent of the time it’s just Renée and Richard hanging out, watching television, eating,” Alpert says.
They accomplished that goal largely by using Missoni fabrics, he said. “They’re exciting, and the patterns are fabulous, and they had metallic threads in them,” Alpert says. “We used them on draperies, on pillows, on those things that the eye sees but that are not really what you sit on. So Renée and Richard didn’t compromise comfort, but they gave the look.”
Alpert suggested the kitchen be as spare as possible, with roll-top cabinets and a washer and dryer tucked away beneath the countertops. He chose a sleek, stainless steel kitchen by Bulthaup.
That worked well, because the Steinbergs typically eat out, and use the kitchen only for breakfast or as a bar area. Renée has converted one corner of the kitchen into her work area and uses the cabinets as file drawers.
“If we had done the kitchen and apartment in a traditional way, it would have been too crowded and heavy,” Alpert said. “There’s much less to stop your eye now. When you walk into the apartment, you look at their art more than the furniture.”
And the Steinbergs’ art, selected with the help of art dealer Joan Genser, is eye-catching. The couple, married for 37 years, like to joke that they have completely opposing tastes in art, which lends a dramatic tension to the apartment.
“Of all the views that we share in common, we do not agree at all when it comes to art,” Renée says. “So Rob Wynne is my favorite artist, and Matt Godwin and Reuven Cohen are Richard’s choices.”
While Wynne’s “Exhale” is a tranquil cloud of crystal bubbles, Godwin’s “Women Gone Wild” is a painting of bright colors that captures a mood of frustration and owes a debt to Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“Our deal is we don’t have to agree on art, but if Renée really likes it very much, she gets to buy it,” Richard says. “If I like it very much, I get to buy it. It’s a shared interest, but our taste is opposite.”
Last year, Renée fell in love with two Robert Longo paintings at Art Basel Miami that failed to captivate Richard. But when she returned to their home near the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, she found that her husband had purchased the Longos and hung them prominently over the sofa.
The Steinbergs also have a home in East Hampton, N.Y., behind the Maidstone Arms Inn and Restaurant — “all our homes are in the village center,” Richard says — and they like to switch out their art frequently.
Genser, who worked closely with the Steinbergs to select their art, said that while she doesn’t classify the Steinbergs as collectors, they are passionate about their art.
“It’s difficult when people are not in the same pew,” she says. “He’s always wanted a Nevelson; she didn’t really care for a Nevelson. She always wanted Longo; he didn’t want Longo in there.
“But they did finally end up buying what they liked, and they bought it to go on the walls, and it looks great.”