July 24, 2025 • 54 mins
In this must-listen episode for our NYC real estate and architecture fans, we talk to acclaimed architects John Cetra and Nancy Ruddy. They’re the husband and wife team behind the firm CetraRuddy, and the creative minds that dreamed up some of New York City’s most beautiful and coveted spaces.
We’ll go behind the scenes on the creation of some of our personal favorite CetraRuddy projects: Walker Tower, 443 Greenwich, and our very own Long Island home, Summerwind.
“We always feel that our hearts & souls are there, in the bricks & mortar." - Nancy Ruddy
Shaping the skyline since 1987, we discuss working together to build a home, a family, and a 137-person architecture firm. Oh, and Nancy’s time hanging out with the Rat Pack at Toots Shor’s when she was a kid!
You can find everything CetraRuddy at cetraruddy.com
And if this episode awakens the desire to build a home of your own or change spaces, we’d be happy to help. Contact us at @tomandmickey or tomandmickey.com
The Tom & Mickey Show is produced with heart & soul by Director & Editor extraordinaire: Stephen Penta (@thepenta)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's the Tom and Mickey show.
Everything is show business.
Lights, camera, action. Freeze ending.
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New York City is home to some of the most extraordinary and beautiful architecture in the world. And in our business, in the real estate industry, we have the privilege to rub elbows and sit at the table with some of the greatest architects in the world. We're thrilled to have two of them with us tonight.
Our good friends from Setra Ruddy, John Setra and Nancy Ruddy. Thank you, dear friends for joining us. Dear friends. Setra Ruddy. Thank you. Okay. Have you ever considered going by Setra Ruddy as like a single name? Like you both be just like Cher or Madonna. Yeah. That's interesting. No, we haven't. That's kind of how it is. You know, when we decided to partner up in business and we looked at branding, of course, it's all about branding at the end of the day.
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In 1987, Setra Ruddy started. We did our homework. 1987. Was there ever a discussion of it being Ruddy, Setra? No. When we started, I started first, like for a year or two, not even, where I was just on my own.
And we knew that Nancy was going to be coming into the, you know, we were going to join together at some point. So first it was John, et cetera. You know, kind of got that Anthony in there. Anthony. Yeah. You're doing Anthony. Anthony. Yeah, right. Anthony. So we started, I started like that, but it was only about maybe a year or two that existed. And then we, you know, just coming together. But can I, can I take you back to, cause I think a lot of people don't know this and about us in that John and I met in architecture school undergraduate. Yeah. And I had a degree in architectural history from NYU and I was on my way to get my masters at Harvard in architectural history. And I had been an artist painting major of my whole young life. And then I realized I went to Bard College and I realized I didn't want to become a painter and be in something involved in just Nancy. And so I started studying art, art history. And then Bard had a matriculation after two years. And they said, if you're going to study art history, you can't stay at Bard. It was a much smaller school. And they said, either you go to number one, NYU or you go to Yale. So I went to NYU. I moved to suburban New Jersey girl, moved to New York city and got my degree in architectural history. So I was on my way. It was August before I was going to Harvard and I, this light bulb went off in my head. And I said, I can combine the historical and my artistic self, which had always been there. And I want to be an architect. So it was it was an era before there were helicopter moms and people were so involved. And I said, I'm not going to Harvard. So we my mother called Harvard and they said, well, the architecture school is full. So Nancy can come for a year and then she can apply to the School of Architecture. So if it was today, there's not a parent alive who would say you're going. But my mother station wagons country squire for, you know, from New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey. Painting a picture. Yeah. You know, I was this strong willed kid. And so we called every architecture school in the New York metro area. And it was August. The only school that would consider speaking to me was City College School of Architecture. So drive up in the country squire. They look at my portfolio and they accept me.
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I gave up Harvard and started at City College. And that's where I met John. John was this.
He looked like John Travolta, like an Italian stallion or platform shoes. And in the winter wore this raccoon coat that a woman professor who he had had a small liaison with. Oh, goodness. He was like an iridescent shirt down to here. But he was the top student at City College. So the thing is, like in the Jewish religion, which my background is Jewish, but, you know, is that it was shared because it's where John and I met. We fell in love. And then he went on to Harvard, you know, to do graduate work. But that that's how we met. And it was like this. We knew we had shared interests, but we're so different in what we did in our personalities. And so we worked separately for a while. John went on to work with at the New York City Planning Commission, then went to work for Jack Robertson, who had been head of the City Planning Commission and joined with Peter Eiseman. So it was a firm called Eiseman Robertson that was very academic and amazing. I only wanted to work for Richard Meyer. I graduated. And so I had interviewed with them. They called and they said, you got the job. And I realized that they didn't talk to me about salary. So I went back to their office and I talked about, well, what will the salary be? And they said, oh, there's no salary. There's, you know, at that time interns and first years worked without money and I couldn't afford it. You know, I was self-supporting, which is another story. But so my professor was Brad Perkins from Perkins and Will, who became Perkins Eiseman. And he was my professor and he said, come work for me. And he offered me a huge amount of money, which was twenty four thousand dollars. That was a huge amount of money. Yeah.
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And so I went for Brad. The more established big firm. And John went to the smaller design firm and then they didn't make a go of it. But I was working on a big, you know, high rise project and I said, let's have to see if John wants to come. And so we worked on a project together and we found it was like we thought either it's going to be great or it's going to be. Kill each other. Yeah. And it was like magic. It was like magic. And from that moment, we said, someday we'll have our own firm. So so we did our journeyman's, you know, and then we said we started our firm in eighty seven. And the little thing I'm just going to tell you, because as friends, you know, so John started. The rest of the world. Yeah. Yeah. And I was a partner with Elia Tia, you know, with a firm we were working for. Brad joined Elia Tia. It was Perkins, Tia and Perkins.
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And so John, we decided it was time. And because I was the managing partner there very young, early 20s. And Ellie only wanted to design. He did one on one Park Avenue. He he was at Phillip Johnson before that did all of the modern one. California, like one on one. Crystal Cathedral. So I agreed to stay a year to find a replacement for me and make sure the firm was OK. We started with a ninety thousand square foot printing company on Hudson Square. And square. John was working out of our second bedroom in Long Island City. And we were there when we were the only English speaking people. It was all Italian, all Greek. It was like living in Europe. It was way a long time ago. So I was doing a project for the Models and hearts also hearts and hearts. And every time I would go into the meeting, Leonard Stern would pull us me aside and say, can you take a look at this? And he was doing this huge project on the East River and he was working with another firm. He would say, they can't seem to get enough units with water view. You know, can you give me some advice? And after like six times, I said, Leonard, John is in our second bedroom. We're starting a firm. Give us a shot. And a week later, he comes back and Leonard says, let's try it. So gives us one point five million square foot project in Long Island City. So suddenly our apartment in Long Island City. There's five draftsmen. We had a set up tables in the, in the, you know, in our living room. And every night I'd come home and there'd be like 47 coffee cups and the sink and stuff. So when John is talking about the April 1st, when we really started, he said, I finally said, we have to get these people out of here. In office. And when it started 38 years ago, were you, you were a couple. Were you married yet? When did, when did marriage come? You know, we weren't married and we were, we thought this would be fine. We were, you know, committed to one another. I mean, we actually already had silverware with our initials on it, you know? So we knew that we knew that we were going to be together. And it was only, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but. 86, we got married. 87, we started. We went to actually, we, we, we used to do this thing where we take my parents on trips because my father never liked to travel too far. We went on this one trip to Vermont and it was really such a beautiful location and Grafton and, and so Nancy and I, I remember we were, they had a little pond and we were on a roll boat. Well, we took them there to tell them the kind of wedding we were going to have. Before that, we, you know, we were, we were there that day, that weekend. And so we decided, you know, this is really nice. We should get married here. You know, so before we took your parents. And so when we, well, I don't know, maybe you know something I didn't know, but that's interesting. Checking you as you speak. Okay.
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You know, this happens many times. So, so I thought. Does it happen with you guys? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I thought, yeah, okay, this is great. This is, you know, lovely. And we'll do this and Grafton Vermont. And we, so only like a few months later, we had our, actually our wedding there. And it was, it was beautiful and it was fantastic. So. So you took the parents on this little trip. Yes. To tell them about the very non-traditional Italian wedding. How did that go over? Well, there were two things. First of all, they loved Nancy. Of course they did. You know, of course. What's. Compared to the little.
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And the kind of women.
So anyway.
So they love her off. She's cut off. They love Nancy. Of course. What's, what's not to love is. I don't see her each day. I miss her. Right. And I miss her. Of course. However.
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The one issue that came up was that, you know, my parents came from this long tradition of Italian weddings, which you guys, you know, you understand. Oh, no. So we were.
We've been there. So on our trip now, how long does it take to go from New Hampshire? No, Vermont. Excuse me, Vermont to New York. Eight hours. That's six, seven hours. Eight hours.
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On the ride home.
From Vermont to New York.
Silence. Silencio. Silencio. Which is sending a message. Sending a message. It's a little less ominous than a horse's head in your bed, but it's a message. It's a message. It's a message. It's a message.
But I think we worked it out because what we decided was we're still going to do that. And we had a beautiful. Wedding, which my parents. Four days. It was a four day. Yeah. His father was up there and my parents were there. My. All of our brothers and sisters were there and it was beautiful. And then we had another party in New York city. In our apartment, which we got everyone together. A big loft apartment. And that was beautiful. We had a great hundred people. And the truth is that my mother who is my, was my nearest and dearest friend and had passed away when we were planning a wedding. And the idea for, for me to have a wedding without my mother. It was very painful. So we put it off and, um, and then we decided we should. Or save the money to do a wedding the way we wanted to do. And it had to be sort of very low key, but then we wound up combining it based on, you know, John's parents. And it was amazing. It was really amazing. And so. Every one of us at this table are artists, right? And it takes the artists to help the family sort of see a different way of doing things. I really feel that. So with our own lives in our own wedding, we had 12 people at our wedding, you know, and very different. Just very different. It's not, it's not what you expect. And that's okay. Yeah. And in the end, you know, all of the, all of the things that, you know, that you, that you hear about couples that when they're, when they get married, all of the issues that come up, all of that gets pushed aside. And then the end, what's, what's important is love. And that's for any culture, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's across, across the board. That's true. Love, food, family.
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And maybe just from a different angle. Correct.
We first met. I remember it so well. You remember it? I remember the day. It was a beautiful day. Walker tower. Oh, it was Walker tower. I, I think, I don't know. I think we, we had met before that, but we had not had a nice sit down. We didn't realize. I think it was the opening party for Walker tower and the model unit, which was by the way, Walker tower, Walker tower, Walker tower. One of like the great real estate stories, the building, nobody wanted of like a decommissioned Verizon switching station.
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Whatever was going on there. Right. But initially designed like the great Ralph Walker. I mean, Yes. Whoever heard of Ralph Walker.
Walker tower. Nobody about him. Brilliant. And what you created, you brought him back to life and edit the setra ruddy. Yeah. Yeah. Magic to it. I mean, the building, it's, it's stunning the success of that project and how gorgeous it is. Walker tower was a great, it's a great project and gorgeous. It is Walker tower was just an extraordinary, you know, perfect storm because we had a very enlightened young developer who said, willing to take major risks and kudos to Michael. I mean, brilliant. Just brilliant. And then put them on the map.
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Yeah. And in analyzing that building, it was a building that had small windows, four foot, four foot wide windows and everything. And they had, they had interviewed every star architect, every United US firm that did traditional restoration, whatever. And Michael didn't get that sense of who is really going to invest Who is really going to invest in this and give me something different? And so we felt it was his brilliance. It's what really started him on that. And he said, I want to do something different because to this day, there are people we meet that said, "Oh, I walked through that building." And I said, "How could we do that with the high sill heights and the narrow windows and this and that?" It was sort of a perfect storm, I think, on that. It was so delightful. It was probably one of the most delightful projects we've worked on to this day because we had a developer who wanted to do something different. And I think we've been really lucky as sometimes you work with a committee of developers or but the people like the Michael Stearns of the world or the Gary Burnett's of the world or the developers who have the confidence in what they want to do and say, "This is what I think is right and I'm going to hire the right designer architect and we're going to do something special." I think if you look at all the projects that have been really successful over the last 10 years, 5 years, 15 years, it's those people who have vision, the vision of saying, "We're not going to just check all the boxes," right? And having those meetings that are so inspiring. So it was a really great experience. I think those chances are so important to us because when developers come to us and ask our opinion about a building and marketing a building, the first thing we think is like, what is the competition, quote unquote, in the area? We have to assess the competition not to be the same as but to be different from, not just better than but different from. And who is the buyer? And who is the buyer? And what is our understanding of the neighborhood and how is it changing? Walker Tower made 18th Street, that section. And there is the trickle down effect to these kinds of developments. I think, Ricky, that's a really important point because one developer who I will not name, which we all know, he said to me one day, he said, "The brokers will only tell you what happened yesterday.
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They don't have a sense of the future. They only know what, they only rely on what has already happened." That's their data.
So if you want to be a visionary, you have to step out of that and you have to look at what you think is the future.
And I think that was such, to me, such a revealing statement. And he wasn't wrong. Not to take anything away from what the brokerage industry does because that's important. A lot of people rely on that, like, "Well, what's the right size unit and what's the
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amenities they need and what's the finishes and all that?" It's very, very important. But when you want to step out of that, you are taking a risk. And so one of the things about Michael Stern, which was so interesting at that time, he for me re-identified what it means to have value engineering. It wasn't about reducing value, but actually creating more value. That's why we went in that building from 1,200 square foot standard kind of loft apartments to what we created, which was a real home.
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The market needed, the market wanted that.
I remember that. So when I see another project and I think there's a value here that can be created, you got to break out of that mold. This is not the standard. You can't think about the standard mold. You have to think about how can I lift this product to this higher level? The point is, number one, to create something that doesn't exist. Number two is for the developer, hopefully, to make a better return on. And I think that's the thing about our projects, that we look at it and we say, "Well, this is what you want, but maybe this is what you really want."
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And whether we did that at Walker Tower, we did that at-- For 43 grand, oh, yes. Who would have thought, "I'm designing the building and I'm laying it out and I'm thinking, I'm going to create this underground parking."
Did I ever think that that was going to become one of the most important things that people would, for their privacy, would want to have this? The paparazzi proof, the celebrity door.
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We created a beautiful, we designed a beautiful lobby and all that, which is great, but they're going to go through the garage and they're going to come out and that's beautiful too, but they're going to go through that because why?
They need that privacy. They don't want to deal with that kind of constant exposure and that building became, I don't know how much value it created from that.
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It's incredible. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's a new market. We can handle it. The building is its own market. And we can tell you this, the last time I remember doing a showing there in recent memory, couple of years ago, but the garage, the Guastavino, the times that we did on the ceiling. Absolutely. The most beautiful parking in New York City, if not the world. It is the most beautiful garage. And of course, when you're showing the building after all is said and done and people are living there, the cars reflect the garage. And it's not a huge garage. 16 cars. 16 cars. Not that many. Last time I was showing, I think spots during this sales process may have been going for as much as a million dollars. Yes. There was a bidding war for one of the spots closer to the door to the residences and the offer on the table was $2 million. And I just thought, you've got to love New York. Yes. Got to love New York because you don't want that extra 30 feet could really, but you know, it's a really good thing. I've lived in New York my whole life, except for two years where I lived in Cambridge. But when you love New York and you see what life is like, and I'm sure we have, yes, we need all kinds of housing. But when you come to that level that you can afford this, you know, you've got to think about these things. Not every building will provide all of these elements to reduce the friction in your life. Yes. I mean, I think the thing is we started that projects and we always start with not style or fashion or what people are doing, but we were thinking, what is luxury?
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We're very based in concept. And so it's not bronze fixtures. It's not marble on the floor. It's not the hinges on what do people really want? And we came up with this idea. It was our first project with Nathan Berman. And we came up with this concept that what is luxury and that is privacy.
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With our work, it's about the concept of taking what is urban living and taking it the next step. And I think that's been the heart. Our practice has been about home, whether it's a synagogue, whether it's a single family home, whether it's multifamily home, but there's a university building. What really is the next chapter of what everyone wants in their soul? This is beautiful. When I hear this, because this... That's what we do. We do and people home. So let's do something together. What are we doing here?
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Dear friends, dear, dear friends. We are so tuned into this because Nancy's making a passionate play. No, I get it. I'm making a passionate play because... Said developer who said that brokers only look at what has happened. That is absolutely true. And that is correct. If you're selling a resale unit in an established neighborhood, that is all we can do. We can't say what's going to happen 10 years from now because... That's too far. That's too far. We don't know. But we recently launched a boutique project on the Upper East Side on East 75th Street.
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It is currently six floor through units. They're all three beds, three and a half baths, at least about 2350 interior square footage. But we looked at the project and when the developers came to us three years, almost three years ago, they wanted to maximize value. That's what developers do and they should do. But we looked at the neighborhood and they said, "Let's do front and rear apartments, two bedrooms." They said, "Then you have the haves and the have-nots." We said, "No." We said, "No." They're not good. They're not good. We said, "Look at the neighborhood. What do you have here? The best private schools in the city, they're all clustered here and there's a severe lack of homes. Not apartments. It feels like a problem. Think about them as homes. We learned that from one of our clients. They never talked about dwelling units. Yes.
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And every one of their buildings, they would talk about homes. In this particular project, it's only six apartments. We're thrilled to have several contracts out. Oh, great. It's residents. Residents too and residents.
It's difficult too when writing listing descriptions. There are only so many synonyms for apartment, unit, residence, home, abode, custodious living experience. That's the broker battle. But what we did is we talked to the developers about, "Do we want to have a unit on the first floor?" And then there's some subterranean space.
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We said, "Those weird duplexes with a dungeon never really fare well. We know you're trying to squeeze blood out of a stone to get every dollar." He said, "Give it back to the building." Imagine six floor through units.
Elevator opens into the apartment. There's no loss for hallway space. Of course, we have our double scissors and all that.
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But we also have a gracious lobby. We have a rear garden, a roof deck for everyone. The elevator goes all the way up to the roof deck. So you don't have to carry your tray up the last flight of stairs.
We're creating communities as well. You build a building and whether it's six apartments or 400 apartments, it's a community. No, for us community is very, very important because if you break it down to where people will live, that's that individual apartment. And I always use this analogy. It's like for me, if you live in a building in a community which is high density, you most likely live in an apartment building.
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And you go through that. Just like your doorman here. The guy was lovely. He, you know. It's a concierge. Doorman, concierge, excuse me. It was like there's a friendliness to it. That's like already welcoming. Welcoming, right? The whole thing is how do you extend that welcoming? So we always think about that. And for me, when we are designing apartments, it's like when I get into that apartment,
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is there a place where a foyer that I can put my keys? That I can just drop right? A little note. I can take my coat off or whatever. Not in my living room, not in my kitchen, but is there a place that I can do this? Because to me, that's about being home.
I don't know all these people that will live in this building. I will never know them. But one thing I know is that we have this human nature.
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And how do you bring that level of thinking? I want them to know I thought about that for them. And I have to say that we're at a point in our firm where about 137 people.
And we are thinking a lot about how we instill that essential spirit to the people we work with when John, you don't have your glasses on, but I wear glasses full time. And John uses reading glasses. So he'll be sitting with a team of young people and he'll pull his glasses down and he'll look at it. And he uses this analogy of I come in my door, I'm finally, I'm home from work.
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And we always develop our designs where there's a series of procession from public space to the New York city sidewalk to becoming more and more private. And you open your apartment door and like John always says, where do I put my keys?
And so everyone who works with us thinks about what that process is, what is that journey is about coming home. And this little thing of John says, so where am I going to put my keys? And it's not like he puts his keys in the same place in both of our homes. But it's that idea that we're thinking about how people live. Yes. And that's so astute because we think about it too in bathroom design and perhaps because we've been through the process of building a home.
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Segue. Segue. Segue. Nice. And we were going through the process of building a home before we came to you. Yes. And we sat down in your Soho office, which I remember like. So not only do John and Nancy do giant gorgeous buildings, they do homes. They're all homes. A singular, but a single family. A single home. A single family. When we were struggling with our plans for a house on Long Island with the two of us, we said, we have to go to John and Nancy. It was such a compliment to us because we as a firm, you know, there's a lot of firms that are known for single family homes and we do six to 10 a year and we, yeah, and we turn the work away. I don't really like doing that because what happens is I feel like when we're working on a development project, the mindset is different.
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When it comes to a personal dwelling of people like me, it's very, very different. So people like working with us because they, I think they appreciate our, you know, we're listening, we're good listeners. I think that's the most important thing as an architect, you have to be a good listener
and you have to then be able to absorb everything, all these ideas and distill them into something that is, you know, is great. So that doesn't always happen quite frankly. You know, sometimes there could be a lot of friction between expectations. It's just a bad expectation. But I think when, when we did your house, summer wind, you are, you guys were, so let's talk about that. Because that was, you guys are waiting to fill in the blank, Nancy. You guys are the reason we don't do. I'll tell you a very funny story. Let me tell the funny story. We kid, we kid here at the Tom and Mickey show. Somehow though with you two guys, it really worked out so well because I guess we know one another well enough and we have this, I don't think of you as like clients. I think of you as friends, as kindred spirits.
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You know, and when you came to us, I thought I'm honored to do this for you guys because
it's not the same. It wasn't the same deal, you know, which is not, it was totally different. You came to us, you had this building halfway falling down the hill.
We have our issues. We have to give Nancy's first. The quote. So just to clarify too, we never expected you to take on the project. We came to you with the plans because we had to look at this. Yes. So friends out there 50 miles east of the city, what do we do? So, and we, so we brought in the plans and we were sitting at that big conference table. And so I still love that office. Your office is now open. Oh please. Nostalgia. I still feel the same thing. But we sat there and you were looking at the plans and looking at the plans.
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There was a central hallway that for no particular reason, there was no access. You wanted a central access here. Right. Right. And Nancy said, why don't we have that? I don't know. Can we?
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And you looked a little longer and you said, my favorite Nancy Ruddy line of all time,
good proportions don't cost extra. Mike drop, burn, burn, burn. Goodnight everyone. Thank you very much. At that point, I think we basically said, if you know anybody who can help us out there to fix this, and you said, give us a couple of days, let us think about it. And you said, we'd like to do it. And I'm like, we're like, a central Ruddy house? A very own central Ruddy house? The value you brought to the project was extraordinary in that I had some baked in ideas about trying to create. Understatement.
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Understatement. Oh, I get them, Nancy. He walked in. Get them 12 books. With three Meisner books under this hand. And it was amazing. Three Stanford White books under this one. Yeah. And some California stuff. Yeah. But you helped us define the way to accommodating a plan that referenced the site. Yeah. Because there were a lot of variables that we'll get into in future episodes, because we've not yet visited Summerwind. We haven't even the show. Stay tuned. But what you as individuals and as a firm did, is that you were able to find a plan that was a very, very important project. And we'd come in, it would be six weeks or eight weeks since our last full meeting. It was like Christmas morning. Every time.
(01:35:00):
Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Okay. Here are three different faucets. I need that quote. I need that quote. Oh, that's beautiful. Three different faucets. Doorknobs. How we went through doorknobs and hinges and hardware. And that's jewelry. That's the stuff that really makes it come to life. Using my work. Yes. Jewelry. Does that mean? Yeah. I'll give it to you. But I'll tell you this far. Mrs. Harry Winston. Because you'd be like, here's this. This is the Cartier.
(01:35:30):
And this is the Tiffany.
And well, you wouldn't say it. And this is the Target. We're like, I'm going with that. We're like, yeah, somehow that was always the most expensive. Like, don't put a Honda in front of me and expect me to choose the Honda. I'm never going to do it. But what the firm did for us is I don't know if you remember, I had cockamamie ideas about like push button lights, which is searching for this very similar to like old Spanish American, like old Hollywood houses. Yeah. Right. And the designs that came through like, oh, this is so beautiful and it's not gimmicky. And in all of your buildings and we still show your buildings, the Georgica, the Barbizon, we just, we still go through those buildings. We're like, we know a thing or two about these architects. What people compliment is there's no expiration date on the design. That's brilliant. Lighting changes. Technology changes. Sometimes you do have to change lighting over time, the basic things, but even the finishes, the basic finishes, because new development can be a long process. So from the times a developer buys the dirt and they start hiring their team and you design it and it's constructed and you come to sales, there are so many new development projects that just reek of like bad milk, because it's like, by the time it's built, it's so trendy that it's passé. Your designs have always, always inspired us. I think 443 Greenwich, we went through that, like, this is for the ages, for the ages. So do you know the story about 443 Greenwich was finally the project where we decided we would buy an apartment? Do you know that story? No. Okay. Well, it shows how architects are inexperienced.
(01:37:26):
So from the very beginning, Nathan Berman, who's a wonderful, amazing client said, I said, I would like to live here. Of all the buildings we've done and every developer has said, we'll give you a deal, come into our building, it'll create a status that you've selected. We've never wanted to do it until 443 Greenwich. And Nathan said, okay, so we picked a relatively small for the building, two bedroom apartment. And even on the working drawings, it said Nancy's apartment. Oh. So it started at something that maybe in our account. With a deal from the developer, who was very good to us and we had gone on to do other projects that we thought we could afford. And then as we did, this happens to us with every building we do that there's a pro forma and then we start to design and plan and the performer goes up and up and up. So there got to be a point where this little apartment was worth. Oh, so we had to put a deposit down, which was big money for us as architects. Which we put down. It got to be a point where this small apartment was worth $9 million and Nathan was so confident. He said, you guys should live here. You deserve it. We'll give you a deal. The numbers kept going up and up and up. And finally, John and I. Did you sign a contract on this? We did all the paperwork we had legal. But what Nathan put in the deal was that anytime John and Nancy want to get out of it, we will give them all of their money back. So stupidly, Geppetto, let me say, we said, we can't be living in an apartment that is worth this kind of money. We don't have this kind of money. And Nathan kept saying, you'll be able to do this. You should be able to do this. And it was just so far beyond what was our reality that we gave the apartment back.
(01:39:42):
And the truth is that we would have made a lot of money.
But more important, the soul of that building in the bricks, in every detail in the craft of it is John and my soul, which is all of our buildings. Yes, it is. Yeah. And I think that that's a thing we lost there.
(01:40:06):
But it was the building that we would have, it really would have worked for us. To pick up on something beautiful that you just said, your soul is a part of our house. Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, do we, we feel that. I mean, it's palpable. Yeah, that's right. And we're thrilled that we've been able to have weekends together. Your choice is the Sinatra Room. Right, the Sinatra Room. The big king-size orange bed. Yeah, beautiful. Right. What I feel like I do as an architect sometimes, like you came to us. You had this, you had a plan, you had an idea, right?
(01:40:53):
But it wasn't all, it wasn't formulated. The style wasn't established. And all of that comes from our conversation. All of that comes from, what is this, what did we turn this like organization plan diagram to a house?
And whether it's a building or a house. And what I love to do is that I become so engaged in it, I become that plan. I become that space.
(01:41:25):
So I'm in there when I'm working on it. I'm not just somebody on the outside. I'm inside it, outside of it. When I go through this experience, it's exhausting. But because it is, because I feel like I channel the site, I channel the clients. It's such a pleasure to, you know, working on that and channeling all of your thoughts on what this should be, what this house could have been.
(01:41:54):
And it's like, well, Ralph Walker was the same thing. I channeled Ralph Walker when I did Walker Tower. I said, what, Ralph, tell me what it is. Because he didn't finish the topic. And we would create it. We changed it. So I remember now. So this channeling, I find to be extremely satisfying because it's not about always me. And that's like, how can I do it better? How can I improve? How can I improve? We're not going to repeat. We're not creating a historic monument here. We're creating a new, a modern house for these two guys who are, you know, and that's where the, that's what, to me, that's when I think about what we can't, what, how it came out. And let me tell you the greatest compliment that we find when, when anyone visits the house, people walk in and they look around and so many times we've heard this, Oh my God, that this house, this house is a hundred years old. Or more, you know, that's the greatest compliment to us that you, that you achieve that, you know, that this, it's not a hundred years old, but it has the history. It has the, it has the DNA. Yes. Of a hundred years and more. Right. Because of your love of music and history and bringing that into, into this house. Nobody needs to know exactly how old it is, but they feel that because what do they feel? They feel a connection, right? Certainly it's not a traditional house. I would say, but it is a house that embodies a spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes people say, well, what style is this or what's I, I'm not interested in style. I'm interested in the spirit.
(01:43:42):
Let's get to the spirit of it and every building that we do, we hope that we'll have that spirit. And I think truthfully, you know, without overstating it, I mean, the two of you have a life and an interest that we felt our job was not about an expression of such a ruddy, but was how do we create this home for two really extraordinary people with diverse backgrounds and amazing interests? It was just an amazing journey for us because clearly, you know, we do more expensive homes, more exotic homes, whatever, but this was, I have to say, the most extraordinary journey for us as a firm. And because there's authenticity about who the two of you are, you know, you're very New York, you're very connected, but the soul of who you are, that's what we absorbed and said, how are we going to create this home for these two amazing people? And it was just an extraordinary journey for us. Yeah, absolutely. Really very meaningful. Thank you. And that's what we look for. Thank you. But no, in our projects, because it's not the scale of it, the price of it, the who's on the 87th floor of it, it's that, you know, people who have gravitas, you know, and who are meaningful and believe in and look, you know, I forget, I forget, I will never forget the time when the Gramercy Hotel was, you know, and we were being considered for the next generation of that, which we wound up not doing. But I thought I walked through that building and I said, Oh my gosh, these are things that Nicky and Tom, that if we can grab something from there, and it's that human connection of designing a single family home that it was so extraordinary. And you guys were the consummate of that, you know, it was really, and you know, the ceiling in the gallery. So there was a point, there were a few points in the project where the budget was out the window and we're just trying to figure out what can we pull back? Just because you had extraordinary tastes and extraordinary expectations. I'm going to stab him with this.
(01:46:09):
And you were saying, I love this man and I want to make him happy. And how do we mod, you know, come together? But I got this guy, JP Morgan over here. Yeah, exactly. By the way, to go back to an earlier quote that good proportions don't cost extra. Nancy, they cost a fucking fortune. I lost my nut cup.
(01:46:34):
Well, no, no, I mean, I just come to call it that because you don't want to stop drinking.
Talk till nuts. Yeah, I got that part.
I'm very new. No, as we were looking at, we had some different options and your office drew up some different options for that gallery ceiling.
(01:46:55):
Because it's too expensive. It's too much. We can't do this. Oh, I know what you're going to say. And we sat down with your mom, my mom, at her kitchen table, my parents who live in a tracked house in Hopag, Long Island.
Well, look what they create.
But she is frugal. She's a coupon cutter. She loves to, you know, she's not extravagant in any way. And as we went through the different options, said, well, we could do this and we could do this. And we showed her in the images, she said, you have to do that.
(01:47:30):
You have to do that. What we did. And she's the reason we did. I would have, I said to our team, if they don't pick this one, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to pay for it. I wish we had known that. Now I can tell you. That's the worst negotiation. I know.
I've heard this before. So I'm going to say, I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to pay for it. I wish we had known that. I know. I've heard this before. So I think what's so beautiful about that too is that you actually, you saw like this connection. So you went to your parents, your parents and you talked about what this is what we're doing, you know, and what do you think about this, you know, and they knew who you were.
(01:48:15):
And they knew who you, so you got to do this, you know, this is the right thing to do. So I'm so glad that you had that, that beautiful moment with your, you know, with your family. And that's, there's always these kinds of issues. Of course.
And you had the vision and we helped with the vision and it would created something that is extraordinary that will now live there for another hundred plus years, you know, and it'll outlive us all. Yeah. You know, and the truth is that we always feel that our heart and souls are the ones and souls are there in the bricks and mortar. Oh, true. And I think I'll tell you this, every episode, because you know, our show business lives in our barns.
(01:49:02):
Every episode has a title and we aim to make the title the name of a song. And I believe that I can say this comfortably right now. There's a beautiful song from the movie, from the show, The Wiz. I knew that. It's called Home. And this show will be, this will be Tom and Mickey present Home. Setra Ruddy Home.
(01:49:28):
Home. I think of a place where there is love all over the world. There's one more question. The eternal question. That question. You have to ask it. So you've heard of this guy Frank Sinatra. Yes.
(01:50:00):
Nancy hung out at the bar with him and the backpack. Not a joke. When she was 12.
Could you even just wow.
I love the story. So, so Nancy's a, you're a teenager. Yes. So my, I grew up in, you know, New Jersey and my father was really into gambling. Small time, but he, his family sent him to college, went to Rutgers for a semester. He said, it's not for me. And he was really very involved in gambling and he knew Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and had this and married a beautiful young woman from the neighborhood and had two children. But he had this other life that was very much vibrant for him. And he was close with, with the rat pack. And my mother was the most amazing person I've ever met, but was not really interested in that. That came from sort of two different worlds. So I was fascinated. So my father used to, when I was a young teenager, we would go in on Sunday nights into, to, to chores, you know, what did I know of to chores? Not really.
(01:51:20):
And so we would go, we would sit at the bar and Frank Sinatra would come in and Sammy Davis and, and, and, um, Dean Martin. And you're how old? I, I'm, I would say I'm 12, 11 and 12. You're 12. You're 12 at the bar at two. At two chores. At two chores. You know, and I remember I could visually see the striped wallpaper. And this is, I'm from suburban New Jersey, right? My mother basically said, this is what our life is. You know, my mother was very intellectual. My father's name was Sam Sammy, Ruddy.
(01:51:57):
Yeah. And was a real Wheeler dealer. And so, and I was in love with Frank Sinatra at starting age seven before I met him. So here I'm 11, 12, 13. My father would take me in and we would, we would go in. I would be, I was, I was a, um, a very competitive swimmer as a young kid. So I would be all sunburned and I'd be wearing like a little white shift as a, uh, you know, and he'd take me in and we would sit at the bar and he'd order burgers or steak or whatever. And then everybody came over to see Sammy. He was funny. He was an amazing dancer. He was very smart, you know, and I met all of them. Like we, we would do that. And my mother wasn't interested in that. The reality is that they offered my father to run the first Atlantic city hotel, the gambling of it. Um, and my mother basically made the decision that I'm not going to move my children down to Atlantic city and to be in that. And it was one of the regrets of my father's life. So that whole thing was an aura for me. And I didn't know how big Frank Sinatra was or Dean Martin. And they'd say, Hey kid, how are you doing? And I would be drinking a Shirley Temple with extra cherries.
(01:53:20):
Yeah. And it was like this very exciting part of me because I was a very intellectual kid, you know, very into books and music and, and, and I loved Frank. I love Frank Sinatra. And so my father, as he aged, he passed away at 896.
The older he got, the more he told the stories of, of the old rat pack and the, the building of Atlantic city. And so when I met you guys,
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's the Tom and Mickey show.
Everything is show business.
Lights, camera, action. Freeze ending.
(01:00:22):
New York City is home to some of the most extraordinary and beautiful architecture in the world. And in our business, in the real estate industry, we have the privilege to rub elbows and sit at the table with some of the greatest architects in the world. We're thrilled to have two of them with us tonight.
Our good friends from Setra Ruddy, John Setra and Nancy Ruddy. Thank you, dear friends for joining us. Dear friends. Setra Ruddy. Thank you. Okay. Have you ever considered going by Setra Ruddy as like a single name? Like you both be just like Cher or Madonna. Yeah. That's interesting. No, we haven't. That's kind of how it is. You know, when we decided to partner up in business and we looked at branding, of course, it's all about branding at the end of the day.
(01:01:08):
In 1987, Setra Ruddy started. We did our homework. 1987. Was there ever a discussion of it being Ruddy, Setra? No. When we started, I started first, like for a year or two, not even, where I was just on my own.
And we knew that Nancy was going to be coming into the, you know, we were going to join together at some point. So first it was John, et cetera. You know, kind of got that Anthony in there. Anthony. Yeah. You're doing Anthony. Anthony. Yeah, right. Anthony. So we started, I started like that, but it was only about maybe a year or two that existed. And then we, you know, just coming together. But can I, can I take you back to, cause I think a lot of people don't know this and about us in that John and I met in architecture school undergraduate. Yeah. And I had a degree in architectural history from NYU and I was on my way to get my masters at Harvard in architectural history. And I had been an artist painting major of my whole young life. And then I realized I went to Bard College and I realized I didn't want to become a painter and be in something involved in just Nancy. And so I started studying art, art history. And then Bard had a matriculation after two years. And they said, if you're going to study art history, you can't stay at Bard. It was a much smaller school. And they said, either you go to number one, NYU or you go to Yale. So I went to NYU. I moved to suburban New Jersey girl, moved to New York city and got my degree in architectural history. So I was on my way. It was August before I was going to Harvard and I, this light bulb went off in my head. And I said, I can combine the historical and my artistic self, which had always been there. And I want to be an architect. So it was it was an era before there were helicopter moms and people were so involved. And I said, I'm not going to Harvard. So we my mother called Harvard and they said, well, the architecture school is full. So Nancy can come for a year and then she can apply to the School of Architecture. So if it was today, there's not a parent alive who would say you're going. But my mother station wagons country squire for, you know, from New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey. Painting a picture. Yeah. You know, I was this strong willed kid. And so we called every architecture school in the New York metro area. And it was August. The only school that would consider speaking to me was City College School of Architecture. So drive up in the country squire. They look at my portfolio and they accept me.
(01:04:02):
I gave up Harvard and started at City College. And that's where I met John. John was this.
He looked like John Travolta, like an Italian stallion or platform shoes. And in the winter wore this raccoon coat that a woman professor who he had had a small liaison with. Oh, goodness. He was like an iridescent shirt down to here. But he was the top student at City College. So the thing is, like in the Jewish religion, which my background is Jewish, but, you know, is that it was shared because it's where John and I met. We fell in love. And then he went on to Harvard, you know, to do graduate work. But that that's how we met. And it was like this. We knew we had shared interests, but we're so different in what we did in our personalities. And so we worked separately for a while. John went on to work with at the New York City Planning Commission, then went to work for Jack Robertson, who had been head of the City Planning Commission and joined with Peter Eiseman. So it was a firm called Eiseman Robertson that was very academic and amazing. I only wanted to work for Richard Meyer. I graduated. And so I had interviewed with them. They called and they said, you got the job. And I realized that they didn't talk to me about salary. So I went back to their office and I talked about, well, what will the salary be? And they said, oh, there's no salary. There's, you know, at that time interns and first years worked without money and I couldn't afford it. You know, I was self-supporting, which is another story. But so my professor was Brad Perkins from Perkins and Will, who became Perkins Eiseman. And he was my professor and he said, come work for me. And he offered me a huge amount of money, which was twenty four thousand dollars. That was a huge amount of money. Yeah.
(01:06:00):
And so I went for Brad. The more established big firm. And John went to the smaller design firm and then they didn't make a go of it. But I was working on a big, you know, high rise project and I said, let's have to see if John wants to come. And so we worked on a project together and we found it was like we thought either it's going to be great or it's going to be. Kill each other. Yeah. And it was like magic. It was like magic. And from that moment, we said, someday we'll have our own firm. So so we did our journeyman's, you know, and then we said we started our firm in eighty seven. And the little thing I'm just going to tell you, because as friends, you know, so John started. The rest of the world. Yeah. Yeah. And I was a partner with Elia Tia, you know, with a firm we were working for. Brad joined Elia Tia. It was Perkins, Tia and Perkins.
(01:06:59):
And so John, we decided it was time. And because I was the managing partner there very young, early 20s. And Ellie only wanted to design. He did one on one Park Avenue. He he was at Phillip Johnson before that did all of the modern one. California, like one on one. Crystal Cathedral. So I agreed to stay a year to find a replacement for me and make sure the firm was OK. We started with a ninety thousand square foot printing company on Hudson Square. And square. John was working out of our second bedroom in Long Island City. And we were there when we were the only English speaking people. It was all Italian, all Greek. It was like living in Europe. It was way a long time ago. So I was doing a project for the Models and hearts also hearts and hearts. And every time I would go into the meeting, Leonard Stern would pull us me aside and say, can you take a look at this? And he was doing this huge project on the East River and he was working with another firm. He would say, they can't seem to get enough units with water view. You know, can you give me some advice? And after like six times, I said, Leonard, John is in our second bedroom. We're starting a firm. Give us a shot. And a week later, he comes back and Leonard says, let's try it. So gives us one point five million square foot project in Long Island City. So suddenly our apartment in Long Island City. There's five draftsmen. We had a set up tables in the, in the, you know, in our living room. And every night I'd come home and there'd be like 47 coffee cups and the sink and stuff. So when John is talking about the April 1st, when we really started, he said, I finally said, we have to get these people out of here. In office. And when it started 38 years ago, were you, you were a couple. Were you married yet? When did, when did marriage come? You know, we weren't married and we were, we thought this would be fine. We were, you know, committed to one another. I mean, we actually already had silverware with our initials on it, you know? So we knew that we knew that we were going to be together. And it was only, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but. 86, we got married. 87, we started. We went to actually, we, we, we used to do this thing where we take my parents on trips because my father never liked to travel too far. We went on this one trip to Vermont and it was really such a beautiful location and Grafton and, and so Nancy and I, I remember we were, they had a little pond and we were on a roll boat. Well, we took them there to tell them the kind of wedding we were going to have. Before that, we, you know, we were, we were there that day, that weekend. And so we decided, you know, this is really nice. We should get married here. You know, so before we took your parents. And so when we, well, I don't know, maybe you know something I didn't know, but that's interesting. Checking you as you speak. Okay.
(01:10:19):
You know, this happens many times. So, so I thought. Does it happen with you guys? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I thought, yeah, okay, this is great. This is, you know, lovely. And we'll do this and Grafton Vermont. And we, so only like a few months later, we had our, actually our wedding there. And it was, it was beautiful and it was fantastic. So. So you took the parents on this little trip. Yes. To tell them about the very non-traditional Italian wedding. How did that go over? Well, there were two things. First of all, they loved Nancy. Of course they did. You know, of course. What's. Compared to the little.
(01:10:58):
And the kind of women.
So anyway.
So they love her off. She's cut off. They love Nancy. Of course. What's, what's not to love is. I don't see her each day. I miss her. Right. And I miss her. Of course. However.
(01:11:19):
The one issue that came up was that, you know, my parents came from this long tradition of Italian weddings, which you guys, you know, you understand. Oh, no. So we were.
We've been there. So on our trip now, how long does it take to go from New Hampshire? No, Vermont. Excuse me, Vermont to New York. Eight hours. That's six, seven hours. Eight hours.
(01:11:46):
On the ride home.
From Vermont to New York.
Silence. Silencio. Silencio. Which is sending a message. Sending a message. It's a little less ominous than a horse's head in your bed, but it's a message. It's a message. It's a message. It's a message.
But I think we worked it out because what we decided was we're still going to do that. And we had a beautiful. Wedding, which my parents. Four days. It was a four day. Yeah. His father was up there and my parents were there. My. All of our brothers and sisters were there and it was beautiful. And then we had another party in New York city. In our apartment, which we got everyone together. A big loft apartment. And that was beautiful. We had a great hundred people. And the truth is that my mother who is my, was my nearest and dearest friend and had passed away when we were planning a wedding. And the idea for, for me to have a wedding without my mother. It was very painful. So we put it off and, um, and then we decided we should. Or save the money to do a wedding the way we wanted to do. And it had to be sort of very low key, but then we wound up combining it based on, you know, John's parents. And it was amazing. It was really amazing. And so. Every one of us at this table are artists, right? And it takes the artists to help the family sort of see a different way of doing things. I really feel that. So with our own lives in our own wedding, we had 12 people at our wedding, you know, and very different. Just very different. It's not, it's not what you expect. And that's okay. Yeah. And in the end, you know, all of the, all of the things that, you know, that you, that you hear about couples that when they're, when they get married, all of the issues that come up, all of that gets pushed aside. And then the end, what's, what's important is love. And that's for any culture, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's across, across the board. That's true. Love, food, family.
(01:13:52):
And maybe just from a different angle. Correct.
We first met. I remember it so well. You remember it? I remember the day. It was a beautiful day. Walker tower. Oh, it was Walker tower. I, I think, I don't know. I think we, we had met before that, but we had not had a nice sit down. We didn't realize. I think it was the opening party for Walker tower and the model unit, which was by the way, Walker tower, Walker tower, Walker tower. One of like the great real estate stories, the building, nobody wanted of like a decommissioned Verizon switching station.
(01:14:29):
Whatever was going on there. Right. But initially designed like the great Ralph Walker. I mean, Yes. Whoever heard of Ralph Walker.
Walker tower. Nobody about him. Brilliant. And what you created, you brought him back to life and edit the setra ruddy. Yeah. Yeah. Magic to it. I mean, the building, it's, it's stunning the success of that project and how gorgeous it is. Walker tower was a great, it's a great project and gorgeous. It is Walker tower was just an extraordinary, you know, perfect storm because we had a very enlightened young developer who said, willing to take major risks and kudos to Michael. I mean, brilliant. Just brilliant. And then put them on the map.
(01:15:22):
Yeah. And in analyzing that building, it was a building that had small windows, four foot, four foot wide windows and everything. And they had, they had interviewed every star architect, every United US firm that did traditional restoration, whatever. And Michael didn't get that sense of who is really going to invest Who is really going to invest in this and give me something different? And so we felt it was his brilliance. It's what really started him on that. And he said, I want to do something different because to this day, there are people we meet that said, "Oh, I walked through that building." And I said, "How could we do that with the high sill heights and the narrow windows and this and that?" It was sort of a perfect storm, I think, on that. It was so delightful. It was probably one of the most delightful projects we've worked on to this day because we had a developer who wanted to do something different. And I think we've been really lucky as sometimes you work with a committee of developers or but the people like the Michael Stearns of the world or the Gary Burnett's of the world or the developers who have the confidence in what they want to do and say, "This is what I think is right and I'm going to hire the right designer architect and we're going to do something special." I think if you look at all the projects that have been really successful over the last 10 years, 5 years, 15 years, it's those people who have vision, the vision of saying, "We're not going to just check all the boxes," right? And having those meetings that are so inspiring. So it was a really great experience. I think those chances are so important to us because when developers come to us and ask our opinion about a building and marketing a building, the first thing we think is like, what is the competition, quote unquote, in the area? We have to assess the competition not to be the same as but to be different from, not just better than but different from. And who is the buyer? And who is the buyer? And what is our understanding of the neighborhood and how is it changing? Walker Tower made 18th Street, that section. And there is the trickle down effect to these kinds of developments. I think, Ricky, that's a really important point because one developer who I will not name, which we all know, he said to me one day, he said, "The brokers will only tell you what happened yesterday.
(01:18:05):
They don't have a sense of the future. They only know what, they only rely on what has already happened." That's their data.
So if you want to be a visionary, you have to step out of that and you have to look at what you think is the future.
And I think that was such, to me, such a revealing statement. And he wasn't wrong. Not to take anything away from what the brokerage industry does because that's important. A lot of people rely on that, like, "Well, what's the right size unit and what's the
(01:18:42):
amenities they need and what's the finishes and all that?" It's very, very important. But when you want to step out of that, you are taking a risk. And so one of the things about Michael Stern, which was so interesting at that time, he for me re-identified what it means to have value engineering. It wasn't about reducing value, but actually creating more value. That's why we went in that building from 1,200 square foot standard kind of loft apartments to what we created, which was a real home.
(01:19:24):
The market needed, the market wanted that.
I remember that. So when I see another project and I think there's a value here that can be created, you got to break out of that mold. This is not the standard. You can't think about the standard mold. You have to think about how can I lift this product to this higher level? The point is, number one, to create something that doesn't exist. Number two is for the developer, hopefully, to make a better return on. And I think that's the thing about our projects, that we look at it and we say, "Well, this is what you want, but maybe this is what you really want."
(01:20:06):
And whether we did that at Walker Tower, we did that at-- For 43 grand, oh, yes. Who would have thought, "I'm designing the building and I'm laying it out and I'm thinking, I'm going to create this underground parking."
Did I ever think that that was going to become one of the most important things that people would, for their privacy, would want to have this? The paparazzi proof, the celebrity door.
(01:20:33):
We created a beautiful, we designed a beautiful lobby and all that, which is great, but they're going to go through the garage and they're going to come out and that's beautiful too, but they're going to go through that because why?
They need that privacy. They don't want to deal with that kind of constant exposure and that building became, I don't know how much value it created from that.
(01:21:01):
It's incredible. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's a new market. We can handle it. The building is its own market. And we can tell you this, the last time I remember doing a showing there in recent memory, couple of years ago, but the garage, the Guastavino, the times that we did on the ceiling. Absolutely. The most beautiful parking in New York City, if not the world. It is the most beautiful garage. And of course, when you're showing the building after all is said and done and people are living there, the cars reflect the garage. And it's not a huge garage. 16 cars. 16 cars. Not that many. Last time I was showing, I think spots during this sales process may have been going for as much as a million dollars. Yes. There was a bidding war for one of the spots closer to the door to the residences and the offer on the table was $2 million. And I just thought, you've got to love New York. Yes. Got to love New York because you don't want that extra 30 feet could really, but you know, it's a really good thing. I've lived in New York my whole life, except for two years where I lived in Cambridge. But when you love New York and you see what life is like, and I'm sure we have, yes, we need all kinds of housing. But when you come to that level that you can afford this, you know, you've got to think about these things. Not every building will provide all of these elements to reduce the friction in your life. Yes. I mean, I think the thing is we started that projects and we always start with not style or fashion or what people are doing, but we were thinking, what is luxury?
(01:22:48):
We're very based in concept. And so it's not bronze fixtures. It's not marble on the floor. It's not the hinges on what do people really want? And we came up with this idea. It was our first project with Nathan Berman. And we came up with this concept that what is luxury and that is privacy.
(01:23:14):
With our work, it's about the concept of taking what is urban living and taking it the next step. And I think that's been the heart. Our practice has been about home, whether it's a synagogue, whether it's a single family home, whether it's multifamily home, but there's a university building. What really is the next chapter of what everyone wants in their soul? This is beautiful. When I hear this, because this... That's what we do. We do and people home. So let's do something together. What are we doing here?
(01:23:49):
Dear friends, dear, dear friends. We are so tuned into this because Nancy's making a passionate play. No, I get it. I'm making a passionate play because... Said developer who said that brokers only look at what has happened. That is absolutely true. And that is correct. If you're selling a resale unit in an established neighborhood, that is all we can do. We can't say what's going to happen 10 years from now because... That's too far. That's too far. We don't know. But we recently launched a boutique project on the Upper East Side on East 75th Street.
(01:24:24):
It is currently six floor through units. They're all three beds, three and a half baths, at least about 2350 interior square footage. But we looked at the project and when the developers came to us three years, almost three years ago, they wanted to maximize value. That's what developers do and they should do. But we looked at the neighborhood and they said, "Let's do front and rear apartments, two bedrooms." They said, "Then you have the haves and the have-nots." We said, "No." We said, "No." They're not good. They're not good. We said, "Look at the neighborhood. What do you have here? The best private schools in the city, they're all clustered here and there's a severe lack of homes. Not apartments. It feels like a problem. Think about them as homes. We learned that from one of our clients. They never talked about dwelling units. Yes.
(01:25:20):
And every one of their buildings, they would talk about homes. In this particular project, it's only six apartments. We're thrilled to have several contracts out. Oh, great. It's residents. Residents too and residents.
It's difficult too when writing listing descriptions. There are only so many synonyms for apartment, unit, residence, home, abode, custodious living experience. That's the broker battle. But what we did is we talked to the developers about, "Do we want to have a unit on the first floor?" And then there's some subterranean space.
(01:25:58):
We said, "Those weird duplexes with a dungeon never really fare well. We know you're trying to squeeze blood out of a stone to get every dollar." He said, "Give it back to the building." Imagine six floor through units.
Elevator opens into the apartment. There's no loss for hallway space. Of course, we have our double scissors and all that.
(01:26:22):
But we also have a gracious lobby. We have a rear garden, a roof deck for everyone. The elevator goes all the way up to the roof deck. So you don't have to carry your tray up the last flight of stairs.
We're creating communities as well. You build a building and whether it's six apartments or 400 apartments, it's a community. No, for us community is very, very important because if you break it down to where people will live, that's that individual apartment. And I always use this analogy. It's like for me, if you live in a building in a community which is high density, you most likely live in an apartment building.
(01:27:12):
And you go through that. Just like your doorman here. The guy was lovely. He, you know. It's a concierge. Doorman, concierge, excuse me. It was like there's a friendliness to it. That's like already welcoming. Welcoming, right? The whole thing is how do you extend that welcoming? So we always think about that. And for me, when we are designing apartments, it's like when I get into that apartment,
(01:27:40):
is there a place where a foyer that I can put my keys? That I can just drop right? A little note. I can take my coat off or whatever. Not in my living room, not in my kitchen, but is there a place that I can do this? Because to me, that's about being home.
I don't know all these people that will live in this building. I will never know them. But one thing I know is that we have this human nature.
(01:28:09):
And how do you bring that level of thinking? I want them to know I thought about that for them. And I have to say that we're at a point in our firm where about 137 people.
And we are thinking a lot about how we instill that essential spirit to the people we work with when John, you don't have your glasses on, but I wear glasses full time. And John uses reading glasses. So he'll be sitting with a team of young people and he'll pull his glasses down and he'll look at it. And he uses this analogy of I come in my door, I'm finally, I'm home from work.
(01:28:54):
And we always develop our designs where there's a series of procession from public space to the New York city sidewalk to becoming more and more private. And you open your apartment door and like John always says, where do I put my keys?
And so everyone who works with us thinks about what that process is, what is that journey is about coming home. And this little thing of John says, so where am I going to put my keys? And it's not like he puts his keys in the same place in both of our homes. But it's that idea that we're thinking about how people live. Yes. And that's so astute because we think about it too in bathroom design and perhaps because we've been through the process of building a home.
(01:29:45):
Segue. Segue. Segue. Nice. And we were going through the process of building a home before we came to you. Yes. And we sat down in your Soho office, which I remember like. So not only do John and Nancy do giant gorgeous buildings, they do homes. They're all homes. A singular, but a single family. A single home. A single family. When we were struggling with our plans for a house on Long Island with the two of us, we said, we have to go to John and Nancy. It was such a compliment to us because we as a firm, you know, there's a lot of firms that are known for single family homes and we do six to 10 a year and we, yeah, and we turn the work away. I don't really like doing that because what happens is I feel like when we're working on a development project, the mindset is different.
(01:30:49):
When it comes to a personal dwelling of people like me, it's very, very different. So people like working with us because they, I think they appreciate our, you know, we're listening, we're good listeners. I think that's the most important thing as an architect, you have to be a good listener
and you have to then be able to absorb everything, all these ideas and distill them into something that is, you know, is great. So that doesn't always happen quite frankly. You know, sometimes there could be a lot of friction between expectations. It's just a bad expectation. But I think when, when we did your house, summer wind, you are, you guys were, so let's talk about that. Because that was, you guys are waiting to fill in the blank, Nancy. You guys are the reason we don't do. I'll tell you a very funny story. Let me tell the funny story. We kid, we kid here at the Tom and Mickey show. Somehow though with you two guys, it really worked out so well because I guess we know one another well enough and we have this, I don't think of you as like clients. I think of you as friends, as kindred spirits.
(01:32:04):
You know, and when you came to us, I thought I'm honored to do this for you guys because
it's not the same. It wasn't the same deal, you know, which is not, it was totally different. You came to us, you had this building halfway falling down the hill.
We have our issues. We have to give Nancy's first. The quote. So just to clarify too, we never expected you to take on the project. We came to you with the plans because we had to look at this. Yes. So friends out there 50 miles east of the city, what do we do? So, and we, so we brought in the plans and we were sitting at that big conference table. And so I still love that office. Your office is now open. Oh please. Nostalgia. I still feel the same thing. But we sat there and you were looking at the plans and looking at the plans.
(01:33:01):
There was a central hallway that for no particular reason, there was no access. You wanted a central access here. Right. Right. And Nancy said, why don't we have that? I don't know. Can we?
(01:33:22):
And you looked a little longer and you said, my favorite Nancy Ruddy line of all time,
good proportions don't cost extra. Mike drop, burn, burn, burn. Goodnight everyone. Thank you very much. At that point, I think we basically said, if you know anybody who can help us out there to fix this, and you said, give us a couple of days, let us think about it. And you said, we'd like to do it. And I'm like, we're like, a central Ruddy house? A very own central Ruddy house? The value you brought to the project was extraordinary in that I had some baked in ideas about trying to create. Understatement.
(01:34:06):
Understatement. Oh, I get them, Nancy. He walked in. Get them 12 books. With three Meisner books under this hand. And it was amazing. Three Stanford White books under this one. Yeah. And some California stuff. Yeah. But you helped us define the way to accommodating a plan that referenced the site. Yeah. Because there were a lot of variables that we'll get into in future episodes, because we've not yet visited Summerwind. We haven't even the show. Stay tuned. But what you as individuals and as a firm did, is that you were able to find a plan that was a very, very important project. And we'd come in, it would be six weeks or eight weeks since our last full meeting. It was like Christmas morning. Every time.
(01:35:00):
Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Okay. Here are three different faucets. I need that quote. I need that quote. Oh, that's beautiful. Three different faucets. Doorknobs. How we went through doorknobs and hinges and hardware. And that's jewelry. That's the stuff that really makes it come to life. Using my work. Yes. Jewelry. Does that mean? Yeah. I'll give it to you. But I'll tell you this far. Mrs. Harry Winston. Because you'd be like, here's this. This is the Cartier.
(01:35:30):
And this is the Tiffany.
And well, you wouldn't say it. And this is the Target. We're like, I'm going with that. We're like, yeah, somehow that was always the most expensive. Like, don't put a Honda in front of me and expect me to choose the Honda. I'm never going to do it. But what the firm did for us is I don't know if you remember, I had cockamamie ideas about like push button lights, which is searching for this very similar to like old Spanish American, like old Hollywood houses. Yeah. Right. And the designs that came through like, oh, this is so beautiful and it's not gimmicky. And in all of your buildings and we still show your buildings, the Georgica, the Barbizon, we just, we still go through those buildings. We're like, we know a thing or two about these architects. What people compliment is there's no expiration date on the design. That's brilliant. Lighting changes. Technology changes. Sometimes you do have to change lighting over time, the basic things, but even the finishes, the basic finishes, because new development can be a long process. So from the times a developer buys the dirt and they start hiring their team and you design it and it's constructed and you come to sales, there are so many new development projects that just reek of like bad milk, because it's like, by the time it's built, it's so trendy that it's passé. Your designs have always, always inspired us. I think 443 Greenwich, we went through that, like, this is for the ages, for the ages. So do you know the story about 443 Greenwich was finally the project where we decided we would buy an apartment? Do you know that story? No. Okay. Well, it shows how architects are inexperienced.
(01:37:26):
So from the very beginning, Nathan Berman, who's a wonderful, amazing client said, I said, I would like to live here. Of all the buildings we've done and every developer has said, we'll give you a deal, come into our building, it'll create a status that you've selected. We've never wanted to do it until 443 Greenwich. And Nathan said, okay, so we picked a relatively small for the building, two bedroom apartment. And even on the working drawings, it said Nancy's apartment. Oh. So it started at something that maybe in our account. With a deal from the developer, who was very good to us and we had gone on to do other projects that we thought we could afford. And then as we did, this happens to us with every building we do that there's a pro forma and then we start to design and plan and the performer goes up and up and up. So there got to be a point where this little apartment was worth. Oh, so we had to put a deposit down, which was big money for us as architects. Which we put down. It got to be a point where this small apartment was worth $9 million and Nathan was so confident. He said, you guys should live here. You deserve it. We'll give you a deal. The numbers kept going up and up and up. And finally, John and I. Did you sign a contract on this? We did all the paperwork we had legal. But what Nathan put in the deal was that anytime John and Nancy want to get out of it, we will give them all of their money back. So stupidly, Geppetto, let me say, we said, we can't be living in an apartment that is worth this kind of money. We don't have this kind of money. And Nathan kept saying, you'll be able to do this. You should be able to do this. And it was just so far beyond what was our reality that we gave the apartment back.
(01:39:42):
And the truth is that we would have made a lot of money.
But more important, the soul of that building in the bricks, in every detail in the craft of it is John and my soul, which is all of our buildings. Yes, it is. Yeah. And I think that that's a thing we lost there.
(01:40:06):
But it was the building that we would have, it really would have worked for us. To pick up on something beautiful that you just said, your soul is a part of our house. Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, do we, we feel that. I mean, it's palpable. Yeah, that's right. And we're thrilled that we've been able to have weekends together. Your choice is the Sinatra Room. Right, the Sinatra Room. The big king-size orange bed. Yeah, beautiful. Right. What I feel like I do as an architect sometimes, like you came to us. You had this, you had a plan, you had an idea, right?
(01:40:53):
But it wasn't all, it wasn't formulated. The style wasn't established. And all of that comes from our conversation. All of that comes from, what is this, what did we turn this like organization plan diagram to a house?
And whether it's a building or a house. And what I love to do is that I become so engaged in it, I become that plan. I become that space.
(01:41:25):
So I'm in there when I'm working on it. I'm not just somebody on the outside. I'm inside it, outside of it. When I go through this experience, it's exhausting. But because it is, because I feel like I channel the site, I channel the clients. It's such a pleasure to, you know, working on that and channeling all of your thoughts on what this should be, what this house could have been.
(01:41:54):
And it's like, well, Ralph Walker was the same thing. I channeled Ralph Walker when I did Walker Tower. I said, what, Ralph, tell me what it is. Because he didn't finish the topic. And we would create it. We changed it. So I remember now. So this channeling, I find to be extremely satisfying because it's not about always me. And that's like, how can I do it better? How can I improve? How can I improve? We're not going to repeat. We're not creating a historic monument here. We're creating a new, a modern house for these two guys who are, you know, and that's where the, that's what, to me, that's when I think about what we can't, what, how it came out. And let me tell you the greatest compliment that we find when, when anyone visits the house, people walk in and they look around and so many times we've heard this, Oh my God, that this house, this house is a hundred years old. Or more, you know, that's the greatest compliment to us that you, that you achieve that, you know, that this, it's not a hundred years old, but it has the history. It has the, it has the DNA. Yes. Of a hundred years and more. Right. Because of your love of music and history and bringing that into, into this house. Nobody needs to know exactly how old it is, but they feel that because what do they feel? They feel a connection, right? Certainly it's not a traditional house. I would say, but it is a house that embodies a spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes people say, well, what style is this or what's I, I'm not interested in style. I'm interested in the spirit.
(01:43:42):
Let's get to the spirit of it and every building that we do, we hope that we'll have that spirit. And I think truthfully, you know, without overstating it, I mean, the two of you have a life and an interest that we felt our job was not about an expression of such a ruddy, but was how do we create this home for two really extraordinary people with diverse backgrounds and amazing interests? It was just an amazing journey for us because clearly, you know, we do more expensive homes, more exotic homes, whatever, but this was, I have to say, the most extraordinary journey for us as a firm. And because there's authenticity about who the two of you are, you know, you're very New York, you're very connected, but the soul of who you are, that's what we absorbed and said, how are we going to create this home for these two amazing people? And it was just an extraordinary journey for us. Yeah, absolutely. Really very meaningful. Thank you. And that's what we look for. Thank you. But no, in our projects, because it's not the scale of it, the price of it, the who's on the 87th floor of it, it's that, you know, people who have gravitas, you know, and who are meaningful and believe in and look, you know, I forget, I forget, I will never forget the time when the Gramercy Hotel was, you know, and we were being considered for the next generation of that, which we wound up not doing. But I thought I walked through that building and I said, Oh my gosh, these are things that Nicky and Tom, that if we can grab something from there, and it's that human connection of designing a single family home that it was so extraordinary. And you guys were the consummate of that, you know, it was really, and you know, the ceiling in the gallery. So there was a point, there were a few points in the project where the budget was out the window and we're just trying to figure out what can we pull back? Just because you had extraordinary tastes and extraordinary expectations. I'm going to stab him with this.
(01:46:09):
And you were saying, I love this man and I want to make him happy. And how do we mod, you know, come together? But I got this guy, JP Morgan over here. Yeah, exactly. By the way, to go back to an earlier quote that good proportions don't cost extra. Nancy, they cost a fucking fortune. I lost my nut cup.
(01:46:34):
Well, no, no, I mean, I just come to call it that because you don't want to stop drinking.
Talk till nuts. Yeah, I got that part.
I'm very new. No, as we were looking at, we had some different options and your office drew up some different options for that gallery ceiling.
(01:46:55):
Because it's too expensive. It's too much. We can't do this. Oh, I know what you're going to say. And we sat down with your mom, my mom, at her kitchen table, my parents who live in a tracked house in Hopag, Long Island.
Well, look what they create.
But she is frugal. She's a coupon cutter. She loves to, you know, she's not extravagant in any way. And as we went through the different options, said, well, we could do this and we could do this. And we showed her in the images, she said, you have to do that.
(01:47:30):
You have to do that. What we did. And she's the reason we did. I would have, I said to our team, if they don't pick this one, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to pay for it. I wish we had known that. Now I can tell you. That's the worst negotiation. I know.
I've heard this before. So I'm going to say, I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to pay for it. I wish we had known that. I know. I've heard this before. So I think what's so beautiful about that too is that you actually, you saw like this connection. So you went to your parents, your parents and you talked about what this is what we're doing, you know, and what do you think about this, you know, and they knew who you were.
(01:48:15):
And they knew who you, so you got to do this, you know, this is the right thing to do. So I'm so glad that you had that, that beautiful moment with your, you know, with your family. And that's, there's always these kinds of issues. Of course.
And you had the vision and we helped with the vision and it would created something that is extraordinary that will now live there for another hundred plus years, you know, and it'll outlive us all. Yeah. You know, and the truth is that we always feel that our heart and souls are the ones and souls are there in the bricks and mortar. Oh, true. And I think I'll tell you this, every episode, because you know, our show business lives in our barns.
(01:49:02):
Every episode has a title and we aim to make the title the name of a song. And I believe that I can say this comfortably right now. There's a beautiful song from the movie, from the show, The Wiz. I knew that. It's called Home. And this show will be, this will be Tom and Mickey present Home. Setra Ruddy Home.
(01:49:28):
Home. I think of a place where there is love all over the world. There's one more question. The eternal question. That question. You have to ask it. So you've heard of this guy Frank Sinatra. Yes.
(01:50:00):
Nancy hung out at the bar with him and the backpack. Not a joke. When she was 12.
Could you even just wow.
I love the story. So, so Nancy's a, you're a teenager. Yes. So my, I grew up in, you know, New Jersey and my father was really into gambling. Small time, but he, his family sent him to college, went to Rutgers for a semester. He said, it's not for me. And he was really very involved in gambling and he knew Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and had this and married a beautiful young woman from the neighborhood and had two children. But he had this other life that was very much vibrant for him. And he was close with, with the rat pack. And my mother was the most amazing person I've ever met, but was not really interested in that. That came from sort of two different worlds. So I was fascinated. So my father used to, when I was a young teenager, we would go in on Sunday nights into, to, to chores, you know, what did I know of to chores? Not really.
(01:51:20):
And so we would go, we would sit at the bar and Frank Sinatra would come in and Sammy Davis and, and, and, um, Dean Martin. And you're how old? I, I'm, I would say I'm 12, 11 and 12. You're 12. You're 12 at the bar at two. At two chores. At two chores. You know, and I remember I could visually see the striped wallpaper. And this is, I'm from suburban New Jersey, right? My mother basically said, this is what our life is. You know, my mother was very intellectual. My father's name was Sam Sammy, Ruddy.
(01:51:57):
Yeah. And was a real Wheeler dealer. And so, and I was in love with Frank Sinatra at starting age seven before I met him. So here I'm 11, 12, 13. My father would take me in and we would, we would go in. I would be, I was, I was a, um, a very competitive swimmer as a young kid. So I would be all sunburned and I'd be wearing like a little white shift as a, uh, you know, and he'd take me in and we would sit at the bar and he'd order burgers or steak or whatever. And then everybody came over to see Sammy. He was funny. He was an amazing dancer. He was very smart, you know, and I met all of them. Like we, we would do that. And my mother wasn't interested in that. The reality is that they offered my father to run the first Atlantic city hotel, the gambling of it. Um, and my mother basically made the decision that I'm not going to move my children down to Atlantic city and to be in that. And it was one of the regrets of my father's life. So that whole thing was an aura for me. And I didn't know how big Frank Sinatra was or Dean Martin. And they'd say, Hey kid, how are you doing? And I would be drinking a Shirley Temple with extra cherries.
(01:53:20):
Yeah. And it was like this very exciting part of me because I was a very intellectual kid, you know, very into books and music and, and, and I loved Frank. I love Frank Sinatra. And so my father, as he aged, he passed away at 896.
The older he got, the more he told the stories of, of the old rat pack and the, the building of Atlantic city. And so when I met you guys,
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