Finally, a Place to Buy a Condo and a Basquiat
Walk into Aby Rosen’s new gallery at 530 Park Avenue and you might think you’re in a real estate sales office.
That’s because it is one.
Mr. Rosen, the developer and collector, has added art to the sales office in the base of his renovated building on Park Avenue at 61st Street. It’s a new approach to luxury real estate sales: Buy an apartment for $2.3 million to $10 million and take home a major piece of art while you’re at it – say, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s collage “Hoax” (1983) or George Condo’s “Girl With Night Gown” (2007) – prices upon request.
“Having this gallery is a different way to approach the buyer – it’s a softer approach, it’s almost disarming,” said Mr. Rosen, the principal of RFR Holding, which operates Lever House. “It is an extension of our aesthetic approach towards real estate.”
The gallery space isn’t exactly ideal for art – two Warhol silkscreens are partly obscured by the reception desk. Takashi Murakami’s fiberglass “Jikkokun” is jammed in the corner, near the couches and the coffee table holding complimentary mints. But that’s the way Mr. Rosen said he likes it. “It’s by-the-way art,” he said. “It’s O.K. to put a plant in front of a piece of art.”
What happens to the “gallery” when all the apartments get sold and the sales office is no longer needed? “We might just keep it,” Mr. Rosen said.
In the meantime, Mr. Rosen said he was perfectly comfortable selling art in a cramped commercial space, even though it all comes from his personal collection. “I have zero issue with parting with something,” he said. “Everything that I own is for sale – other than my wife and kids.”
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