Thirty years ago, a New Yorker with a sharp eye and a strong back could still find and rescue an Eames chair from a Midtown dumpster. Those with greater means, and less patience, might buy marble pedestal tables and Swedish flat-woven rugs at furniture dealers, like Lin-Weinberg Gallery and Wyeth, that were wedged between ice-cream shops and eyewear boutiques in the city’s walkable neighborhoods. Recently, though, rising rents and a desire for intimacy have pushed high-end décor upstairs and out of view.
Always a treasure hunt, shopping for designer furniture in New York has become more like grabbing drinks at a speakeasy: If you know, you know.
Somerset House displays its inventory at what Alan Eckstein describes as a “speakeasy” address.
In 2022, Alan Eckstein, 39, moved his furniture showroom, Somerset House, from a Williamsburg storefront, where he could expect 300 visitors on weekends, to a cheaper warehouse on a desolate block in Long Island City, amid small residential buildings and across from a gated parking lot. A rabbi and his family live in the loft apartment upstairs.
The grandson of a decorator from Great Neck, N.Y., Mr. Eckstein got into the interior design business six years ago, amassing inventory at the Design Within Reach Outlet in Sunset Park, at auctions and flea markets, and via Craigslist. He began using the pieces to decorate listings for local real estate brokers. A 25-foot wide Cobble Hill brownstone he is staging for Lindsay Barton Barrett, the Brooklyn broker, will list for over $20 million next month.
Shoppers — who can visit Mr. Eckstein’s warehouse space on Fridays or by appointment Monday through Thursday — find inventory not used for staging displayed for sale in artful groupings. The exposed brick walls are freshly painted ecru, and new oversize picture windows splash sunlight onto the furniture, like a 1950s coffee table with fanciful Jacques Blin tiles on top and some inevitable scuffs on its wood legs ($8,200).