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FABULOUS
ROOMS FOR A Given
such plushness it is no great surprise that Alice Wilson, manager
and design chief of Antique & Contemporary Leasing and Sales,
was called in to do a spectacular three-bedroom model apartment. Fluffing
multi-million dollar properties is one raison d'etre for this Washington,
DC,—based company. "When a place looks good, they get top
dollar," she says.
ACL
was founded 27 years ago by Leezee Porter, wife of retired Ambassador
and Chief Arms Negotiator Paul Nitze, to serve short-term residents
who want an elegant home without the fuss and expense of buying and
then selling furniture after a month or a year. All is simply returned,
then sent off to grace another home.
Consider Rock Newman's mini mansion off Foxhall Road. When the fight promoter upgraded to a maxi mansion and moved out, the property languished on the market for nearly a year. His real estate broker rightly suspected that prospects were scratching their heads over what to do with a living room the size of a small boxing arena. "That one required four seating areas to make it feel cozy," laughs Ms. Wilson. She floated two white sofas the size of stretch limousines in the center of an eighteen by twenty four foot needlepoint rug, created a game center off to one side, a small conversation grouping on the other and a cozy dining nook overlooking the wooded backyard, giving the imaginary owners another option to the breakfast room and the formal dining room. "I love making homes come alive," says Ms. Wilson. The speed in which the Newman house sold is testimony to her ability to do just that.
Five sofas. Two settees. Forty-two chairs. Twenty-six table lamps. Two tapestries. Eleven Oriental rugs. Organizers of NATO's 50th anniversary summit needed all this and more to transform part of the Mellon Auditorium building downtown into elegant reception areas where world leaders can schmooze before this weekend's commemoration ceremonies.
-Annie Groer
That's a trendy sales concept in which interiors are treated like theater sets. The idea is that rooms are to be arranged with carefully designed clusters of furniture and accessories. Crummy furniture goes and good stuff is showcased. The idea got its start in the late 1980s, when the home sales market was sluggish. To get houses moving, some real estate offices even had decorators on the payroll to recommend designs. Today, agents make the suggestions. "Staging a house is very important," said Sue Huckaby, and agent of Weichert Realtors in McLean. "All you have to do is look at new homes and the amount of money that builders pay to decorate new home models." With sales rolling in, fewer agents these days are recommending augmenting the decor by leasing furniture. But Antique and Contemporary Leasing on Capitol Hill, a huge furniture and accessories warehouse, still routinely works with agents on very large, vacant or harder to sell properties. Ramona A. Greene, an agent of Long & Foster's Friendship Height's office, rented items in July to help sell boxing promoter Rock Newman's mansion on Dexter Terrace NW. The house was so large that potential buyers had trouble visualizing how to use the space, said Alice B. Wilson, manager of Antique and Contemporary Leasing. "The living room was huge, about 40 by 50 feet, and people couldn't figure out what to do with it," she said. "So we set up four different seatings to make it look lived in and comfortable." The property listed at $2.39 million, was reduced to $1.99 million and sold for $1.9 million. The Newmans paid $1.2 million in 1994. -Sandra Fleishman Alice Sells the House When (in)famous fight promoter Rock Newman was having trouble moving his mini-mansion off Foxhall Road he called in Alice Wilson, manager of Antique and Contemporary Leasing, for a consult. Newman and his wife had already moved out, and the cavernous space was intimidating to buyers. As Alice told the Washington Post in a recent Home Section, "the living room was huge, about 40 by 50 feet, and people couldn't figure out what to do with it...So we set up four different seatings to make it look lived in and comfortable." The property, which the Newmans purchased for $1.2 million in 1974, sold for $1.9 million. ACL frequently works with real estate agents and homeowners to spiffy up houses for sale. They're called upon just as often by home buyers, and renters, who want to look settled...fast. If you haven't been in, don't miss the third floor bargain center, there are always hot deals on furniture and accessories that are being moved out of inventory. Copyright 2005, Antique & Contemporary Leasing, Inc. All rights reserved. |
