With the coronavirus still raging, the housing market in spacious Westchester and Fairfield counties continues to be hot, hot, hot.
But don’t discount the commercial sector, particularly with health care and its ambulatory services as well as the need for distribution centers heating up.
That’s the message echoing again and again in our October real estate and construction issue. We’ve corralled many of the heavy hitters — Ginsburg, Houlihan Lawrence, Raveis, Simone and Sotheby’s — and asked them not only to share their stories but to give us the lay of the land. We also have profiles of two star developers — Louis R. Cappelli (Laura’s story) and Rella Fogliano (Jena’s), who’ll be honored at the 35th annual March of Dimes Westchester Real Estate Awards Breakfast Nov. 4 at The Opus Westchester in White Plains for their work with the nonprofit, which in turn does so much for mothers and infants at risk.
What they know, and what many have discovered in the pandemic, is that home is everything. So in this issue we help you make the most of it. Cami tells you how to add on to it, while Katie tells you how to furnish it. Speaking of furniture, we’re delighted that Bridget McCusker of our sister publication, the Westchester County Business Journal has joined us with a piece on Country Willow, a Bedford Hills store noted for taking its fine furnishings beyond the country aesthetic to embrace the sleek mid-century modern, Scandinavian and industrial styles beloved by many of today’s shoppers. Meanwhile, Jeremy anticipates winter, exploring gas and wood-burning stoves, fireplaces and accessories at Wittus: Fire by Design in Pound Ridge.
But we haven’t neglected the outside with features on Patty DeFelice, whose Patty’s Portico in Port Chester restores and sells patio furnishings — just ask Martha Stewart — and on new WAG adviser Gregory Sahagian Sr., whose Hartsdale-based awnings company has given shelter to everyone from the folks at Barnes & Noble Eastchester to those at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden. Why do these stories in October? Because if you want to be ready for the great outdoors next year, DeFelice and Sahagian will tell you, now’s the time to prepare.
We wouldn’t be WAG, of course, if we didn’t have a little fun. Peter — who does triple duty with his cover story on Ginsburg Development Companies’ aesthetic approach to real estate and construction and Tarrytown Marina’s plan for a “Wharf Boatel”— pivots for a look at Trump Tower in White Plains. Opened with great fanfare in 2005, with a pre-presidential Donald J. Trump and wife Melania in attendance, this Trump Tower is looking for a new name after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Juliet asks her Romeo. Plenty, as it turns out. The saga of White Plains’ Trump Tower is a reminder that time is indeed another country, transforming places in ways even developers can’t anticipate, and that the only constant in real estate and construction is change.
A 2020 YWCA White Plains & Central Westchester Visionary Award winner and a 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and “Seamless Sky” (JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes.
Her short story “The Glass Door” was recently published by JMS and part of “Together apART: Creating During COVID” at ArtsWestchester in White Plains. Her new story, “After Hopper,” is now available from JMS Books. For more, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
