Here’s the part where most design / build and architect websites inject a whole bunch of cockamamie language in an effort to come off sounding a whole lot more sophisticated than they actually are.

How do I know?

Because I’ve written about a half-dozen “about” pages for design / build teams, and architects.

I’m able to sleep at night, because as flowery as the writing might have been, I was always accurate and truthful, if perhaps, at times, embarrassingly self-aggrandizing.

Let’s cut the s**t.

I’ve done over three hundred renovations in NYC and have been fortunate enough to work with and for people who have executed literally thousands of construction projects, and, if I’ve done one thing right in all this, I’ve always kept my eyes and ears on the person in the room with the most experience.

I’m not the best carpenter, painter, plasterer, HVAC dude, structural engineer or architect. I’m not the best plumber, locksmith, designer, millworker or flooring specialist. I can’t expedite, pull permits or generate mechanical drawings. I’m just a guy who knows all the best people in their fields, I know how to put a job together, I know what everything should cost, and for some reason, all my people like working with me, so, when I call, they pick up.

For what it’s worth, I was born and raised in NYC. Have traveled throughout the world fairly extensively, from an early age, and have lived abroad for significant periods of my life.

I come from a family of artists. So, I grew up in loft spaces here in NYC. Later in life I lived in more conventional apartments, both in NYC and abroad. I think these experiences instilled in me a fascination with how varied spaces can work, about how to create private, intimate spaces within lofts and about how to create a sense of openness in more traditional apartment layouts.

When it really comes down to it, I feel like, growing up in one of the most violent neighborhoods in NYC (Red Hook in the 80’s) was an integral part of my development within this field. In order to survive, you had to be able to read people. You had to be able to assess people’s motives and motivations very quickly. Years of life-or-death training in that environment made me really good at figuring out which tradespeople and service providers were cool, and which tradespeople and service providers might have issues. Over the years, I just kept whittling down the most capable and coolest people to work with. And here I am. Just a guy who gets his calls answered by the best architects, designers and tradespeople on earth.

It’s a good gig, and a great place to be.