It could be worse.

That’s where developer Barry Leistner is planning to build an eight-story glass-and-brick condominium building that would likely block Mr. Staller’s river views.

Mr. Staller—who claims to have already accrued over $100,000 in expenses from lawyers, supervising engineers, consultants and architects—has been able to hold off the construction over several issues.

Mr. Staller alleges that the excavation at the beginning of the construction caused significant damage to both his four-story townhouse and backyard carriage house.

Ever since Richard Meier’s celebrity-filled condominiums first towered over Perry and Charles streets, a frenzy of development has gripped the far West Village.

And so real-estate battles have become commonplace on these (formerly) tranquil cobblestone streets, ensnaring historical preservationists, flashy condo developers, renowned artists and architects, and a handful of nosy neighbors.

At the urging of preservationists, the City Council passed a neighborhood down-zoning last fall that capped the height of new construction to 100 feet.

But three much-disputed developments squeaked through under a grandfather clause: Julian Schnabel’s nine-story addition to his stable building on West 11th Street; a two-story addition at 166 Perry Street; and Mr. Leistner’s project at 163 Charles Street.

For Mr. Staller, none of this looked like it was in the cards when he moved from Warren Street in Tribeca to Charles Street in December 1992.

He dropped $990,000 on the two 19th-century buildings—the smaller of which he rented out for about 12 years. Although significantly more limousines and Maybachs zoom by these days than Volvos and taxicabs, Mr. Staller still envisions “a very nice neighborhood where people [maintain] good relations.”

Mr. Staller not only resides at No. 161, but also installed a dark room and utilizes the garage as “an informal gallery.” (When deep-pocketed collectors aren’t perusing his photography, a white Ford Taurus remains parked inside.)

The artist’s idiosyncratic residence includes an art installation of orange molded training pistols in the living room, a silver drive-in movie speaker (which once served as his intercom) mounted near his desk, dozens of glossy culture magazines piled on the floor and retro, snot-green medical cabinets that wouldn’t look out of place in a Damien Hirst exhibition. “It has a kind of utilitarian elegance to it,” he said.

Utilitarian elegance is a theme with him.

“It’s very much in keeping with my being drawn to the river, and the West Side of Manhattan, and the afternoon light,” Mr. Staller told CNN about his decision to both live and work in this area, in an artist profile a decade ago.

That was in 1996. Just a few years later, Mr. Staller realized that construction at 173 and 176 Perry Street would obscure that view, and came up with a plan.

“I commissioned an architect to come up with a design for a penthouse, so that I could access the river view that way,” said Mr. Staller, from behind his thick, round glasses, facing out onto the Hudson.

After the penthouse was built, Mr. Staller’s next-door neighbor, art dealer Kenny Schachter, revealed his plan for a nine-story building, designed by architect Zaha Hadid.

Mr. Schachter asked him to sell his air rights, while insinuating that construction might block the front terrace view, according to Mr. Staller.

“I don’t think you have a right to a view,” said Mr. Schachter, who now resides in London. “When you are in New York City, you resign yourself to the fact that development will take place where it takes place.”

But for Mr. Schachter, his high-end development with Ms. Hadid would eventually take place across the pond, in London’s fashionable East End. So, in December 2004, Mr. Schachter sold the 22-foot-wide building to Mr. Leistner for $5.9 million.

Then came Mr. Leistner’s own design for an apartment building at 163 Charles Street.

According to design plans, the eight-story building will include two floors of commercial space, a four-bedroom duplex with outdoor terraces and a two-bedroom apartment comprising the fifth floor. On the sixth through eighth floors, the developer is creating a triplex penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces. And Mr. Leistner’s already found a tenant: himself.

“In exchange for my view, he wanted me to give him all of my undeveloped air rights for my building, in order for him to preserve my view,” said Mr. Staller. “Well, that’s actually millions of dollars’ worth of air rights. The view’s not worth that much.”

“I’m a businessman, and I know what has to get done to make things happen,” said Mr. Leistner, who claims that he has always been willing to negotiate to not block the terrace. “He’s just very difficult.”

Last summer, the situation became increasingly difficult.

“In July, I woke up one morning, and this building had developed a half-inch crack,” said Mr. Staller.

On July 25, the Buildings Department issued a stop-work order at 163 Charles Street for failure to protect the adjoining structure during excavation. However, since the department could not prove those specific cracks were Mr. Leistner’s fault—since there were no before-and-after photos at the time—Mr. Staller was also served with a violation for not properly maintaining the building.

“The rear carriage is totally burnt out anyway,” said Mr. Leistner. “He has a couple of cracks in the floor of his garage, which we’re going to put injection grouting and patch the slab and paint.”

But there could be issues besides for the carriage house.

“By December, this is when we observed that my front door would no longer lock properly,” said Mr. Staller. “I noticed, in the front, that the building is tilted.”

But Mr. Leistner’s crew will need access to Mr. Staller’s building in order to complete the underpinning that the Buildings Department requires and start building skyward.

On April 6, the feuding parties met at Mr. Staller’s attorney’s office—each with his own engineer on hand.

“We had a handshake agreement that he’s going to make these repairs, he’s going to pay for them, and he’s going to build the building as planned with the Buildings Department—which afforded me scenic easement on the top floor,” said Mr. Staller.

“Two weeks have gone further and he wants to sue me now, to gain access to my property, to force these repairs on me, without being beholden to the agreement we had,” Mr. Staller continued. “This scenic-easement thing is something he’s been holding over my head the entire time.”

Sidestepping the attorneys, Mr. Leistner contacted his neighbor directly on April 18 via fax:

“If you wish to avoid a costly legal confrontation with me and still reach an amicable solution, I can only suggest that you commit, in writing, to grant my company and its representatives and contractors, immediate access to perform the injection grouting. If you grant such access, I will continue to take steps to preserve your views. The choice is yours, as to how we proceed.”

“I’m really looking to settle with Jan,” said Mr. Leistner. “I’m not No. 1 on his hit parade, I’m sure. But it’s not because of anything that was ever done intentionally.”

“I would like nothing better than to get him to finish his building [and have] my view, and just live in peace with everybody around here,” said Mr. Staller.

Doumanian’s Show House

“When you have a wonderful shell, you can do so many things,” said film producer Jean Doumanian, speaking of her limestone mansion at 4 East 75th Street. “There are very few things you can’t do in that house.”

On April 24, Ms. Doumanian and her longtime boyfriend, banker Jaqui Safra, attended the opening-night gala for the 34th Annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House, located in the couple’s 50-foot-wide mansion. However, Ms. Doumanian and Mr. Safra didn’t have to clear their possessions out before the interior designers took the place over. The 20,000-square-foot home—which has a whopping $55 million price tag—has been empty for several years.

“We always talked about the idea of living in it,” said Ms. Doumanian, who now resides in a luxury apartment building. “I think it’s wonderful for a family or for an embassy. If there’s only two people, you kind of get lost in there.”

Over the years, Ms. Doumanian and Mr. Safra have attended a number of Kips Bay Show Houses throughout the Upper East Side, and when they were asked to temporarily donate their building, the couple was more than happy to oblige.

A day after the black-tie gala crowd cleared out, the mansion’s regal doors opened to the public. Now, by dropping a $30 donation, anyone can pass through the five-story building and gawk at the variety of furnishings and styles used in each room.

During a press preview, several designers emphasized the juxtaposition of old and new objects—from antique textiles to fabrics that could be purchased at a local Target. Indeed, throughout the 22 rooms—which range from a grand master suite to small gallery space—there are decorative pieces gathered from the past 2,000 years of civilization.

For instance, in “The Library”—by Richard Mishaan Design—there’s a statue of Apollo dating from the first century near more contemporary objects, such as a slate sculpture positioned in front of the fireplace. Designer Susan K. Gutfreund decorated one room with both hand-woven Indian silk from Shyam Ahuja and Home Depot bamboo blinds. Throughout the Neo–French Renaissance mansion, there is now state-of-the-art technology—such as L.E.D. lighting by Philips Electronics and plasma televisions—adorning the same walls with master paintings.

Remarkably, the super-sleek televisions don’t look too out of place, even with the well-earned provenance at this address. The townhouse’s distinguished history began with shipping magnate Nathaniel McCready in the late 19th century. Later owners included I.B.M. founder Thomas J. Watson Jr. and Standard Oil heiress Rebekah Harkness, who founded the Harkness Ballet Foundation within those limestone walls in 1964.

And could an affluent buyer show up too?

“I think that somebody might hear about it and come,” said Ms. Doumanian. “They will see that the space could take any kind of design.”

Unlike most open houses for lavish residences, you don’t need a Swiss bank account to get past the front door. The Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which hopes to raise over $1 million for the organization’s Boys & Girls Club, runs through May 23.

Now the building is a battleground.

Mr. Schnabel angered his notoriously preservationist West Village neighbors in January 2005 when he announced plans to expand the building into a 12-story tower, with exhibition spaces, a swimming pool and a cluster of luxury condominium apartments.

But a recent downzoning of the neighborhood restricts the height of future construction from 200 to 100 feet—and Mr. Schnabel’s project, begun in late September and slated to rise to 167 feet, is caught in the middle.

He’s not alone. The new regulations have embroiled celebrities like Mr. Schnabel and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, as well as prominent luxury real-estate developers like Richard Meier’s partners in the glass-and-steel buildings on Perry Street, which have attracted buyers such as Martha Stewart, Nicole Kidman, Calvin Klein and Vincent Gallo.

To finish his building according to the old regulations, Mr. Schnabel will have to prove that construction was far enough along when the new zoning regulations were put in place that it should be grandfathered in.

But neighbors are charging that for three days in October, Mr. Schnabel’s builders defied the new zoning in order to advance construction and improve his chances.

It all began on Oct. 11, when the City Council voted to downzone a large swath of the West Village in response to growing neighborhood unrest over the crop of tall buildings like the Meier towers being planned for the neighborhood.

Mr. Schnabel actually praised the Council’s vote at the time, telling the New York Post: “This rezoning is a victory for the neighborhood.”

“That is the height of hypocrisy,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a group that has been actively seeking the rezoning since holding a town-hall meeting in March 2004.

“Aside from the fact that [Mr. Schnabel] did absolutely nothing to support getting this rezoning to happen, if he does have any favorable tendencies, it’s clearly only to preserve the views from his giraffe-like tower,” said Mr. Berman.

Perhaps he knew what was coming. On Oct. 14, the Department of Buildings made a preliminary assessment of his property and decided that the development was far enough along—“vested” is the term of art—that it could proceed under the old zoning laws.

“We have complied with all requirements and requests for information from the Department of Buildings, completed the foundations before the rezoning was passed, and believe we are fully vested,” said a spokesperson for the owner.

But critics told The Observer Mr. Schnabel continued working after the zoning change, and may have completed his foundation during those three days in question. After the ruling, neighbors, preservationists and local politicians aired grievances with the Department of Buildings; a final decision on the project’s fate is expected any day.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the Department of Buildings will rule that it didn’t vest,” said State Senator Tom Duane, who has been a fervent supporter of the rezoning.

On Oct. 19, Mr. Duane sent a letter to Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, urging her to “reconsider the initial ruling.” In the letter, he wrote that individuals and groups have provided documentation showing that Mr. Schnabel employed “shady methods, including illegal work, in his rush to get the building ‘vested’ before the new zoning law changed.”

Council member Christine Quinn also sent a letter to the department to stop construction. “I do not believe that the work has progressed sufficiently for the new development to be ‘grand-parented’ under the old zoning,” she wrote.

On Nov. 1, Ms. Quinn, along with Mr. Berman and other critics of Mr. Schnabel’s development, presented their evidence to the Department of Buildings. In addition to sworn affidavits alleging illegal construction, they brought a time-stamped video shot by a neighbor, which allegedly shows the movement of machinery after hours. According to the Department of Buildings, after-hours work is a Priority B complaint, and is not as urgent as a collapsing structure, for example. Mr. Berman argued that neighbors “did their due diligence” by phoning in complaints, but that the site was not inspected in a timely fashion.

Complaints filed with the Department of Buildings support Mr. Berman’s contention. Since Sept. 22, there have been 27 filed; however, inspectors have substantiated none of the claims.

“On numerous occasions, I’ve had to call the Department of Buildings and the Police Department to check on reports of illegal work,” said Ms. Quinn. “Frequently, what happens is by the time the inspectors or whomever show up, the workers have gotten wind of it.”

Michael Lefkowitz, president of the condo board at nearby 155 Perry Street, has called 311 to report after-hours work.

“I think he believes he’s finished enough, so he can bully his way through,” said Marian Arkin, a college English professor who also lives at 155 Perry Street. “We’re hoping that we can fight him.”

However, one former neighbor disagrees. Last January, art dealer Kenny Schachter sold his 1832 row house at 163 Charles Street—another contentious location—to developers for $5.92 million. Before leaving, he suffered through the tumultuous construction of the third Meier building.

“It is very disruptive, but it is an aspect of living in this kind of city,” said Mr. Schachter, who dealt with his own façade being cracked and smoke pouring through from construction next-door. Mr. Schachter initially had plans for developing his West Village property with architect Zaha Hadid, but instead moved to London to build a new gallery.

“The things they pick on, like Julian Schnabel—and I’m no 100 percent fan of his work—but still, he is a longtime resident of the neighborhood. He’s a renowned artist. And he’s designed the building himself, so it’s like a sculpture,” said Mr. Schachter. “It will probably be better than his paintings.”

Tall, Beautiful, Special?

Some who have been watching these battles—which gained widespread attention when Richard Meier’s tall glass celebrity dorms went up on Perry Street—are also arguing that the new buildings actually improve the neighborhood.

“I think those streets were highly undesirable before Richard Meier,” said Leonard Steinberg of Prudential Douglas Elliman. “The hookers have been replaced by high-end real estate.”

Richard Born, Charles Blaichman and Ira Drucker, who partnered with Mr. Meier on those first two Meier towers at 173 and 176 Perry Street, are trying to build a third on their own at 166.

Originally, the developers planned to add a two-story addition on a six-story garage; but on Oct. 17, six days after the Council passed the downzoning plan, they received a stop-work order, leaving the penthouse addition eerily in mid-repair, with building materials scattered on the roof.

The developers plan to bring their case to Board of Standards and Appeals, and hope the issue is reconciled within a month or two.

“My understanding of the zoning is that if you completed a reasonable portion of the work, you can go ahead,” said Mr. Born. “Since we have a substantial amount of work done, I believe the building department will allow us to go ahead and complete. But they have to review the file, and look at it.”

Since July, a stop-work order has been in place nearby, at developer Barry Leistner’s site at 163 Charles Street, and there appears to be little construction completed. Originally planned to rise eight stories, the plans could be drastically scaled down to three under the new zoning, according to Mr. Berman.

Their excavated site left for months presents a stark contrast to the large billboard for the development, which shows a rendering for a ritzy-looking, modern condo.

“Certainly the area has spurred a lot of knockoff designs,” said Jon Capobianco of the Corcoran Group, who currently is listing luxury apartments at 165 Charles Street and 173 Perry Street, at $4.6 million and $3.695 million, respectively. “I would call it a Richard Meier knockoff, because they are going for the same look without the starchitect’s name.”

In October 2004, Ms. von Furstenberg sold her studio and residence at 387-91 West 12th Street, dating to 1856, when they were built as stables. The buyer, for $21 million, was Coalco, a real-estate development company run by Russian metal tycoon Vasily Anisimov. (His daughter Anna, an N.Y.U. sophomore and tabloid mainstay, helped broker the deal through Alex von Furstenberg, Diane’s son.)

Built in the sale was a provision allowing Ms. von Furstenberg a year-and-a-half lease on the property, which is set to expire in March 2006. That’s when Coalco planned to erect a 150-foot condo of shimmering glass boxes, designed by architect Christian de Portzamparc.

“If I would have smelled at all a downzoning or rezoning, I would have never allowed her to stay in the property for a year and a half,” said Edward Baquero, managing partner of Coalco. “It wouldn’t have made any sense. We would have left flexibility to get her out so we could vest the property prior to the downzoning.”

Now, Coalco has put the property on the market for the same price they paid for it, $21 million, while also considering whether to bring up the issue with the Board of Standards and Appeals.

Under the new zoning, Mr. Baquero said that Coalco would only have been able to build 12 luxury condos instead of 20, making the project financially impractical.

“As a rule, I like the downzoning,” said Ms. von Furstenberg, who has championed Coalco’s project. “The reason why I testified [before the City Planning Commission] for this building is because the street, as it stands now, doesn’t really have beautiful buildings. I think that we should go for the quality of the project more than just the size.”

And others question completely who really benefits from downzoning.

“It’s always he who was there first who can dictate these rules,” said Mr. Steinberg, who is infuriated by the “small-town thinking” of many preservationists. “We were all here after the Indians. Do they have a say in the matter? Old is a very relative term in Manhattan.”

“What do you prefer, something that is taller, beautiful, special and unique, or something that is smaller, and of bad material,” said Ms. von Furstenberg. “I think obviously the first.”

And yet, for a guy who just spent a few hundred thousand to build a custom-designed gallery space-in his home, no less-the clean-cut and bespectacled Mr. Schachter seemed energized by the bad juju he felt would soon hang over the art world.

"When there are no opportunities, that's when all the great things happen," he told The Observer .

Mr. Schachter spoke from experience: His first big hit of New York success came during the art market's last belly flop, the early 90's. While the much of the art establishment floundered, Mr. Schachter flourished on the fringes, curating roving shows of new talent in often-desolate spaces in Soho and Chelsea. He was one of the first to show Janine Antoni and Cecily Brown, and his unorthodox methods earned him a New York Times Magazine cover story about the "do-it-yourself" art world in 1996.

But with the art-market boom of the late 1990's, Mr. Schachter's contrarian ways became de rigueur in the mad, market-wide scramble to feed the sudden spike in demand for art. "When I first started, there were no galleries in Brooklyn, there were no galleries in Chelsea. It was a recession, and I was literally one of the only people looking at unsolicited material, because there was no way to get a foothold into the system," he said. "What I realize now is that my shows and what I was doing became utterly indistinguishable from what 250 galleries in Chelsea were doing."

Now that market conditions threaten to turn inclement, Mr. Schachter sees opportunity once more. But though he wore black track-suit pants and high-tech Nike trainers to his interview, his second act won't be distinguished by the self-described "hit-and-run" strategy that dominated the first. For him, the future is a fixed point: his very first gallery space-designed in metal and concrete by the 70's performance-artist-turned-architect Vito Acconci-located in the former playroom of his Charles Lane townhouse, where he lives with his wife, Ilona Rich, the designer daughter of songwriter Denise Rich, and his four children.

Grandiose Terms

Mr. Schachter calls the space conTEMPorary, because he's agreed with his wife that it will only stay open a few years, until he finds the space for another, bigger project of his. Yet he clearly intends for it to make waves in the art world. "I'm speaking in grandiose terms but," he said, "I think it will turn the gallery world upside down."

The gallery opened in June, and in the spirit of his early art-world ventures, Mr. Schachter had the art/fashion collective As Four perform at the opening. Roughly 1,000 people came, including filmmaker Wes Anderson, "It girl" Chloë Sevigny and Whitney curator Lawrence Rinder. Soon afterward, W magazine wrote a piece about the opening, with a picture that made Mr. Schachter look grown-up and serious in a light-blue button-down shirt-a big change from the white T-shirt emblazoned with "Virgin Gorda" that he wore to this interview.

The show itself was a typical Schachter mix, from the dubious (blurry photographs from Imitation of Christ designer Tara Subkoff) to the edgy (videos by Bjørn Melhus, who plays all the roles in a mock talk-show video that's dubbed with the actual voices from episodes of Maury Povich's syndicated program) to the classic (architectural models and a 1935 lamp by Frederick Kiesler, whose design for Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery inspired Mr. Schachter's space). And as Mr. Schachter noted: "Everything's for sale. Everything's always for sale."

Though the gallery space was still not finished on July 25, Mr. Schachter bounded around, pointing out its niftiest features. Toward the entrance, there was a gray desk made of rough steel that literally branched off from the entrance wall toward the inside, its various winding parts breaking into a bench and some storage space. The ceiling of the gallery, in the same omnipresent gray steel, curved toward the middle of the room to become a screen for video installations. Beneath it, vertical wall-sized panels of metal screens with eyelets could flip up, as Mr. Schachter eagerly demonstrated, and turn into seats or display shelves. Taking into account an upstairs office, the gallery amounted to 1,200 square feet of cramped contemporary space.

"This is like taking the outside of Bilbao and taking it inside," he said.

'A Dead Thing'

Mr. Schachter apparently intends for his gallery to have the same revolutionary effect on New York's art world as the Guggenheim Bilbao has on the eyes. "I feel that the [Barbara] Gladstones of the world, even the Matthew Markses, that's a dead thing," he said, describing his own plans for a new type of gallery. "I feel like galleries in the future are going to be of a whole other shape and form …. I'm hoping that another generation sees [my space] and goes on to do things that I never could have thought of."

How exactly Mr. Schachter intends to accomplish this, he didn't say. Apart from the W piece, his latest effort has so far prompted a mixed review from The Times. "Whether such an aggressively sculptural environment will be good for displaying art is debatable," the piece read. "But it is exciting to see someone dare to think differently."

Nevertheless, Mr. Schachter certainly seems to know what he doesn't want to be. Despite his hyperactive enthusiasm and omnipresent smile, he didn't mince words when it came to other denizens of the art world. Whitney Museum director Maxwell Anderson? "He wouldn't know a piece of contemporary art if it hit him over the head. He runs around with his wife squeezed like a sardine into these dresses with her boobs hanging out. It's disgraceful."

Gallery owner Barbara Gladstone? "She reminds me of that movie Michael Moore did, Roger & Me- it's like you could spend three days trying to find her in her own gallery."

Guggenheim Museum director Tom Krens? "I think he's a genius. I only wish he liked art more."

White Cube gallery owner Jay Joplin? "He's the snobbiest of the snobs."

Mr. Schachter also called painter Damian Loeb's work "utter shit," and lambasted Robert Ryman and Peter Halley for catering to collectors by painting in the same consistent style for the past 25 years, and knocked Gavin Brown (of the eponymously named gallery, Gavin Brown's enterprise), for "priding himself on being some obnoxious, arrogant, condescending person."

(Mr. Brown replied: "I don't know what I could have done to offend him. We barely know each other." But he added: "I hope everything goes well with his gallery.")

Mr. Schachter's readiness to take on the small, unforgiving universe of the New York art world might explain why, when things started to dry up after he hit a self-described "zenith" in the late 1990's-nabbing a Rockefeller grant, money from the Dutch government, and a show of his own art at the Sandra Gering Gallery-he found few sympathetic shoulders to cry on. The Times piece had, after all, provided him a pulpit from which to scorch the city's art scene. Among other things, he called it "small" and "provincial" and complained of its "exclusivity"-all the things he still harps on to this day.

Mini Midlife Crisis

So when the 90's ended, Mr. Schachter found himself desperately trying to get his shows reviewed and find cheap spaces-to no avail. "It became such a huge market; everybody opened a gallery," he said. The situation was such that he briefly toyed with the idea of moving to London and, in the spring of 2000, had a temporary show there entitled I Hate New York in a rented-out space.

The opening drew local rock stars and television personalities, but Mr. Schachter sold very few pieces. The experience culminated in his being violently robbed of his camera, computer equipment and phones while he was manning the show. He came back to New York in late 2000 and put together a show celebrating 10 years as a dealer. Ms. Antoni and Ms. Brown were among the artists featured, but still, he said, he got no reviews. Shortly afterwards, he had a crack-up. "At this point, I was having a mini midlife crisis," he said. "I started drinking, and I was so depressed I was going to quit the art world all together." By that time, the Williamsburg gallery scene was thriving, artist-run spaces had become commonplace, and Mr. Schachter started to feel the movement he'd helped create had been corrupted. It was emulating the four-white-walls model again, he felt, in another location, and trying to create another exclusive art bastion.

"I felt like what I was doing-the moving around the different locations-that was a novel thing in the beginning," he said. "But now I felt, like, so stale."

Attack of the Blob

So Mr. Schachter, who had worked briefly as a lawyer, stockbroker and traveling tie salesman for Nino Cerruti's grandson-"the most degrading existential dilemma"-before becoming an art dealer, considered even more briefly a post-art career in real estate. Serendipitously, in January of 2001, he met German real-estate developers interested in setting up a real-estate venture around a gallery. Mr. Schachter decided to team up with them to create a large space that would be both gallery and restaurant-whose design quickly took the shape, in Mr. Schachter's word, of "a blob." When no space could be found for the blob, Mr. Schachter decided to convert his kids' playroom, which also served as his study, while he kept looking.

"At first, [my wife] pretty much off-the-cuff agreed to it," Mr. Schachter said of Ms. Rich. "Then, when I had to move my office and started to encroach the place, she became progressively less complacent until she was pretty much at my throat. Then I explained to her that Vito's space was in steel, and she was like, 'I hate that-I hate that sensibility.' Now, of course, she loves it, but if she was ever in that space, it would be painted stripes."

Asked how other dealers had responded to the space, he responded with a characteristic shrug.

"As long as they don't feel economically threatened by what I'm doing, they won't care," he said. "They'll say, 'Good, good,' but they'll go back to their little white thing and try to hawk the same paintings they've been trying to hawk to the same people over and over and over. But I don't care. I'm not going to stop. I'm always yap-yap-yapping.