Show Us Your Sales Office: The Residences at the Jumeirah Essex House

Monday, April 28, 2008, by Joey

The city's developers are on an all-out blitz to lure well-heeled buyers to their projects, and the first front in this high-stakes war is the sales office—the base of operations for the building's sales and marketing. Nowadays, sales offices are just as luxurious as the condo units they're meant to sell. Show Us Your Sales Office will be your guided tour of the most over-the-top of the bunch. Got a sales office you want to show off? Drop us a line at tips@curbed.com and tell us why!

Following a two-year, $90 million renovation funded by its new owners—the Dubai-based Jumeirah hotel and hospitality investment firm—the Essex House at 160 Central Park South has reclaimed its Art Deco splendor. And it picked up some new tricks along the way. A chunk of the hotel's rooms have been combined and converted to 35 luxury condos, with quirky floorplans and interior details crafted by Costas Kondylis & Partners. The apartments are known as The Residences at the Jumeirah Essex House, and they are scattered amongst the hotel's 40 floors, sharing amenities with all those transient neighbors.

Because the Essex House is a fully functioning hotel, space is at a premium. So instead of the traditional sales office and showroom set up, the brokers working in-house decided to just set up shop in one of the model apartments. Up until about two seconds ago, it was #1720, a 2BR, 3BA unit tricked out by funky designer Jonathan Adler. Priced at $3.25 million, the 1,461-square-foot apartment faces south, east and west. Wait, they chose to sell multi-million dollar apartments out of a Central Park South office without Central Park views? Indeed they did, but here's the thing: the Midtown views are also kind of awesome. Gah, it took a lot of introspection and strength to type those words, but we're comfortable with it.
· The Residences at the Jumeirah Essex House [Official Site]
· Adventures in Real Estate Pronunciation: Jumeirah [Curbed]
· Show Us Your Sales Office archives [Curbed]