Real Estate Showcase Archive

A KITCHEN WITH CLASS
When Greg and Kim Lippmann sell their $2.295-million loft apartment at 889 Broadway, they will not be the only ones dispossessed.

“I have been teaching in that apartment for four or five years. It is wonderful,” says Anna Teresa Callen, whose Italian Cooking School meets in the Lippmanns’ kitchen every Monday evening.

The open kitchen has two dishwashers, six burners, two grills, two ovens and a 20-foot-long island. “The large island is ideal for demonstrations. It’s where the action is,” Callen says.

She hails this as one of the rare kitchens around not designed by “an architect who cannot cook.” In fact, it was not designed by an architect at all, but by cookbook author Lee Bailey, who used to own the apartment.

Current owner Greg Lippmann is also a bit of a food author: The Sushi Spreadsheet, his online restaurant guide, ranks almost 100 Japanese restaurants in New York City, and is fast becoming a must-read among epicures.

LA VIE DE CHATEAU
Todd and Amy Hase, cofounders of Todd Hase Furniture, styled their Bridgehampton home as a large French country chateau. It has a Palladian facade and a formal staircase, dining room and ballroom. But the room the Hases love most is the downstairs kitchen.

“We have guests for dinner at least 70 times a year,” says Amy Hase. To handle the crowds, they made the kitchen as inviting and functional as the house’s other rooms.

The eat-in kitchen has a barrel vault ceiling, stucco and stone walls, tumbled limestone flooring, unfussy lighting fixtures, islands imported from Paris and two hammered-copper sinks. The Viking appliances include two refrigerators - one dedicated just to chilling wine and fresh flowers. A dumbwaiter connects to the dining room upstairs.

After two years in the home they built, the Hases have decided a French-style chateau is not enough. They have put it on the market for $8.9 million, and plan to spend summers instead at an actual 17th-century chateau they bought in Normandy.

SELLING A DREAM
Most of the new $15-million, 7,800-square-foot townhouse at 37 Beekman Place will be left for its new owners to decorate and finish. However, being a food lover, the developer couldn’t resist planning every detail of its luxurious ground-floor California kitchen.

“He is an Italian with a taste for cooking, and he is making this his dream kitchen,” says Jack Byrne, the Century 21 William B. May vice president who is selling the home.

Byrne’s client is sparing no expense. The appliances are almost all oversized professional models. There will be a Viking six-burner, 48-inch gas range with 54-inch hood, both gas and electric ovens, a 42-inch Sub-Zero refrigerator, a Viking wine refrigerator and two dishwashers.

The island separating the kitchen from the dining area will have space for seating with an added bonus: while enjoying the East River views over morning coffee, the new owners can also bask in the warmth of a wood-burning fireplace.