While walking through the high-ceilinged expanse of No. 3F at 708 Greenwich Street, we found ourselves oddly compelled to pick up throw pillows, cocktail shakers, potted plants and books. The capacious West Village one-bedroom was so well turned-out, we realized, that it was triggering the same impulses one experiences in a high-end design store.
In the living room, an elegant, old-fashioned mantelpiece (above the wood-burning fireplace) was flanked by restrained, mid-century modern couches and chairs, while a hutch opposite the white subway-tiled kitchen was filled with antique silver offset by colorful Sclafani tomato cans. Massive, patterned rugs covered the floors and vintage chandeliers hung from the exposed pine beams—the space had once been a horse stable, Corcoran broker Justine Lee-Mills, who shares the listing with her colleagues Meris and Sydney Blumstein, told us. Even the music playing softly in the background was expertly curated: French jazz, Ms. Lee-Mills confirmed, which she’d selected from the owners’ collection.
Hence we were not surprised to learn that the owners, who did their own decorating, were fashion executive Chris Amplo, formerly of J. Crew and Coach, now of Michael Kors, and his partner. The couple is selling the unit, listed for $1.99 million, despite recently completing a renovation, because Mr. Chris had been promoted to head of retail in London.
“They’d never sell otherwise,” said Ms. Lee-Mills, a friend of the couple’s. She looked wistfully about the loft-style entertaining space, describing how dinner parties that began around the kitchen island would end with guests cozied up by the fire. A fully stocked mid-century bar beckoned invitingly in the corner—“It’s the flight lounge you always want but never find,” she said.
When the couple purchased the space in 2013, it was a classic, white-walled artists’ lair. Among other things, they replaced the wood window sills with black granite, added a mantel to what the broker referred to as a “firebox,” and redid the bathroom with hexagonal marble tiles and a high-end Toto toilet equipped with warmed seats and bidet functions. The kitchen was entirely redone with new appliances (Liebherr, Viking, Miele and Marvel) and the bedroom, which is flooded with southern light, is now in possession of a closet befitting, well, a fashion executive, with bright red ceilings and walls patterned in gold chevrons.
But lest the buyer worry that the space lose some of its luster after the current occupants cross the Atlantic, Ms. Lee-Mills assured us that, with the exception of the art, everything was negotiable. Perhaps we’d take another look at that cocktail shaker, then?
