LEFT: At the rear of the living room on the second floor, an electric garage door opens to the back terrace. The sofa is from Capellini and the photo at left is by Erwin Olaf. RIGHT: Light boxes by artist Heidi Cody spell out what the house is all about—family. Chairs found at a Brooklyn flea market surround a vintage French science table.
If what Andy Warhol famously suggested is true—that everyone will eventually get 15 minutes of fame—then Cortney and Bob Novogratz are surely on the cusp of their allotted time. Earlier this year, the husband and wife design team/real estate developers released their first book, Downtown Chic, which chronicles 10 years of turning dilapidated buildings into swank residences in lower Manhattan. They recently moved into the newest over-the-top townhouse of their own design on the West Side Highway, and along with their seven children signed with the venerable Ford Modeling Agency.
But the thing most likely to make them a household name is 9 by Design, their own reality show slated to air on Bravo early next year. The show focuses primarily on projects that the couple has been working on all year, like their new home and their first commercial endeavor, a boutique hotel on the Jersey shore called Bungalow. “We spent six months this year shooting eight one-hour episodes,” says Cortney. “We hear it looks like nothing on Bravo or any other network. We hope that’s a good thing… if not we’ll just move to Brazil.”
FROM LEFT: A piece made out of pearl buttons by British artist Ann Carrington hangs over a Boffi marble tub in the master bath; a work by Vik Muniz decorates the nursery. Floors throughout the home are zebrawood; a floor of black-and-white Bisazza tiles adds a dash of old-school charm to the home’s formal entry. A pair of paintings by Richard Woods hang behind an Arik Levy light fixture.
One gets the distinct impression that Cortney need not worry about their future success. Both husband and wife exude an authentic Southern charm (Cortney, 37, hails from Georgia and Bob, 46, is from Virginia) and have a palpable magnetism and proven track record for creating innovative homes that win over both buyers and the press. (Swing-for-the-fences ambition runs in Bob’s family—his brother Mike is with Fortress Investment Group and his sister Jacqueline is the CEO of Acumen Fund.)
The Novogratzes began in 1996 with a condemned 19th century brick townhouse in Chelsea and have worked their way east, turning a manufacturing building in Soho and an adjoining parking lot into striking, almost European-looking homes. (The pair handles everything from purchasing property to architectural design, construction—with their own crew—and interior décor.) After successfully flipping those properties, they bought four buildings that had been gun shops and tenement apartments on Centre Market Street (on the border of Little Italy and Chinatown) and literally transformed the neighborhood.
