A Grand New Home For a Tribeca Corner

 by Carl Glassman


Sherri and Steven Schnall swear they never intended to live so large. "Kind of surreal" is how Steven, 38, describes the whole idea. But when the opportunity came along to create a place of their own, on a Tribeca site at North Moore Street and West Broadway that can be seen all the way to Soho, the couple couldn't say no.

Formerly No Moore Bar, this 2-story building will be coupled with a new 6-story building. Photo: Carl Glassman
The Schnall family, which includes three-year-old Jack, will have a home comprising a custom-built, six-story structure on West Broadway coupled with the neighboring two-story structure (formerly No Moore bar), on the corner of North Moore Street. In all, the home will be almost 10,000 square feet.

"It's crazy the square footage we're going to end up with, it's a lot," said Sherri, 37, a producer of TV commercials. "But we don't have to move to the suburbs now. It's our suburb."

The couple now lives in a 2,500- square-foot condo on East 65th Street.

In an interview in Steven Schnall's midtown office, where he is president and CEO of the New York Mortgage Trust, a publicly traded company he started out of his apartment 13 years ago, the couple declined to disclose the price of their new home. But they insisted that they are getting a lot for their money.

"Four or five thousand [square feet] would have been ideal for us," Steven said. But for the price of a 5,000-square-foot condo on the Upper East Side, or a 5,000-square-foot loft on North Moore Street, he said, they could build their own home. "What we're picking up in terms of square footage, we're paying for in sweat equity and time."

Some of the sweat in that equity will go toward getting the project approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission-no small feat, as the couple discovered last month. Their Tribeca-based architect, Wayne Turett, must marry the new and old building facades in a way that the commission finds suitable for the historic district.

"We wanted to tie the ground floors of the two together but Landmarks doesn't like that," said Turett, who specializes in high-end residential construction. "Landmarks was pushing for the idea that the two buildings were distinctly different and had no connection."

At a hearing on Oct. 25, the commission asked the architect to rethink the design, as did Community Board 1's Landmarks Committee when it voted down the design earlier in the month.
Architect Wayne Turett shows his design for a new home to CB1's Landmarks Committee. Photo: Carl Glassman

"Make the old thing the old thing, and make it wonderful," said committee member Eric Anderson. "And make the new thing a new thing; a wonderful modern building."

However the architect resolves the problem of the facades, the interior of the smaller building will be as one with that of its neighbor. "

Sherri and Steven Schnall will be the owners. Photo: Carl Glassman
The ground floor alone will house an entrance foyer, Sherri Schnall's art studio (she is a metal sculptor), a garage and loading dock for the studio, and two guest bedrooms.

The second floor will be a 2,800- square-foot living, dining and kitchen area, recreation room and home theater. Over the living room are planned structural recessed skylights, bringing the outside into the living and rec rooms and creating an inner courtyard.

Continuing upstairs: a study/library and kids playroom on the third floor; three children's rooms on the fourth (they plan to have more kids); a master bedroom suite on the fifth; and a gym on the sixth. The Schnalls are toying with the idea of putting a pool on the roof.

"I can give them an amazing house with an extensive amount of outdoor space and lots of light," said Turett. "There are few sites like this in the city, and therefore few houses that are comparable."

It was a showcase of a townhouse on Leroy Street, designed by Turett, that first caught the couple's fancy. By the time they decided to bid on it, the home had been sold. But the owner of that property also happened to have the Tribeca site. When he changed his mind about developing it, Turret called the Schnalls and told them it was available.

"That decision we had to make in a week," said Sherri.
The couple knows they will be criticized by some for their spacious house. A member of CB1's Landmarks Committee last month referred to the size of the home as "obscene."

But, Steven insisted, "This house doesn't define us."

"I lived in a 300-square-foot apartment for two years and I was happy there," he said. "I started this business with nothing. It's the fruits of a lot of hard work."

"We're really humble, believe it or not," Sherri added. "We're pretty quiet people.