Magnificient Me Articles....a magazine for women with minds of their own


	Careering

Cortney Novogratz, property developer

I never thought I’d end up....knocking down houses while raising six children.

I grew up in Georgia, in the Southern part of the US. It’s a little slower than other parts of the country. And from very early on, whether it was from watching TV or reading books or magazines, I knew I wanted to be where the action was. I’m the youngest of five kids, and we were lucky because my parents took us travelling. They took us to Europe and I just loved the energy and pace that was in the bigger cities.

Most of my friends were into country music. I liked anything that was different - Billy Idol, the Beastie Boys – and I was able to express myself through decorating my room, painting all black walls, for instance, which was not your typical ‘Southern Sweet’ style.

My parents were into decorating, and would think nothing of knocking down walls. Renovations were constantly going on. I loved art, but that early experience taught me that there were bigger canvases to draw on.

I knew early on that NY is where I wanted to live, work, and raise my children. I have now lived here longer than my childhood in Georgia, and feel blessed every day to walk these streets.

When I moved to New York I studied art and acting, and was taking acting classes and waiting tables when I met my husband Robert. We fell in love, and though we shared the same interests, we never thought we’d run a business together. He was in finance.

Even before we got married, we were going overseas and buying stuff at flea markets. We started with an antique window we shoved under our bed when we were dating. And now we have a warehouse full of our finds – French cathedral windows, Moroccan lamps, old subway signs.

We bought ourselves a condemned building to renovate. We used every cent Robert had doing it up. Our friends told us: ‘You’re crazy, you’re organising your wedding and you’re living in this dump with no running water etc.’ But to us, it totally made sense. Even though we had no experience, we knew we’d get there in the end. And that’s how our business started. I would draw up the architectural plans and we could just see what needed to be done.

I feel like I’ve had an amazing opportunity to learn on the job. I know some wonderful architects who’ve been to the top schools, but all they get to do is renovate penthouses.

We hustled and we seized opportunities where we could. We were always looking for properties in funky, up and coming areas that we could afford. We finished that first house, and then we rented it out and moved into a smaller apartment and started putting more money away so we could buy up real estate. In the meantime, I fell pregnant. The renovating was still a hobby when I had Wolfgang. Then I had the twin girls and we developed our hobby as a business.

We have a great team of people we work with, and we’re very clear about what we’re doing. We work with a conservative structural engineer. He helps make sure our creative plans are properly built. We use an expediter to get our tricky buildings or lots zoned and permitted. We never buy with tenants living there (only vacant places) and never in a historical area. We buy one block from historical neighborhoods. This allows us to mix modern and old within a home and doesn't slow down the process.

It made perfect sense that working together to renovate these buildings was a great way of being with my husband and also being with my kids. And that’s the way it’s evolved. We now have a design company, Sixx Design, with a 26 bedroom hotel opening in spring 2009, two private houses under construction and a book on design in the final stages of publication. We can’t decide on the title – though I like ‘Sixx Degrees of Renovation’.

The name of the company was inspired by our six kids: Wolfgang (11), Bellamy and Tallulah (twins, aged 9), Breaker (7) and the two three-year old boys, Five and Holleder. We base our work in Manhattan, so if ever we get the call from school that one of our kids is sick, we can be there to pick them up. My two youngest are in pre-school, and they come back at midday to have lunch with us.

It’s a constant juggling act but it works because our work revolves around our home – I get contractors to come to the house whenever I can. If we’re having tea, so be it. They become a part of our lives. I’ll take the kids with me if I have to go on a site visit or to a tile warehouse. If I have to, I’ll hand a baby to one of the contractors on site to hold while I climb a ladder. It works. It was just the best combination. I needed to work, and I wanted a family. That’s why it’s wonderful to have this very fluid and creative business. Our kids just go along with it and they get to see what we do. It’s important for kids to realise you have to work to earn money.

For many people, the stress of simply moving house is enough to push them over the edge. I guess Robert and I are pretty calm people. And we love what we’re doing so much, we just take the challenges on board. Stuff happens, permits get refused, things get delayed. We know it’ll be worth it in the end. When we bought four condemned buildings in the street we now live in, that was a big commitment because we had to find buyers for each property, and we hadn’t even done them up. We had our moments, but it all worked out. And we got to design our own five-storey townhouses.

We would love to design a big, mixed use family building in New York. We could make every floor different (unique to each family) and the common space could be for toddlers as well as teenagers. We designed a two lane bowling alley for a couple in their home (it’s on our website). We created an arcade, wet bar, and lounge area with wii and xbox setups. We’d have stylish storage for strollers and bikes in the lobby. Lots of great families would love to live in the city, but can’t afford it. Robert and I think city life is amazing for families - less commute time, more time with your kids. So we’re on the lookout for a super large building...

My other passion is travel. It’s a necessity. I love being in new places, new cities. It’s just so stimulating, visually. And we have always travelled with our kids – not that travelling with small kids is easy. We love Brazil, but it’s a long haul with kids. It’s an eight hour flight, and then there are two connecting flights to get to our favourite place.

However exhausting it its, it’s still better than staying at home. The kids have dealt with it all – flights being cancelled, camping out in airports for hours, not getting seats together so they have to sit next to strangers. They’re so used to it that when they’re older I think they’ll be able to go anywhere – backpacking in Africa, or wherever – and see the beauty of it.

One time we were in Sao Paolo, and there was a small riot. The air conditioning had failed, flights were cancelled, people were bringing air mattresses in to sleep on. The twins were potty training and it was a long walk to the bathroom. It was so difficult. I was almost overwhelmed. But we really wanted to experience Christmas and New Year in Brazil. At New Year, the entire village dressed in white. It was the most incredibly exotic, emotional and wonderful experience for all of us.

I love fleamarkets. People travel and they go to the museums, they go to the galleries. They never think of going to the fleamarkets. And it’s the fleamarkets that tell you so much about a country, about its culture. Our kids have become big fans too. They love the toys, the bric-a-brac – even if it’s just old fashioned Coke bottles.
My daughters are wonderful, but they do get tired of me looking in skips. They’ll tell me: ‘It’s just junk’, and I’ll say: ‘No it’s not, it’s a beautiful chair, if we just re-covered it.’ But I have to try and keep a perspective. I have to remind myself, say, as I’m driving the kids to soccer, that now isn’t the time or the place to throw that abandoned chair in the back of the car.

I couldn’t take on the work that we do without help with the kids, but the nannies I’ve employed over the years are always multi-tasking. It gives you more room for maneovre. There are so many details to oversee. I can ask them to make sure the right colour tiles are being put in new bathrooms. If we’re handing over a new house to a client, you need someone to take the stickers off the furniture. I used to do it all, but now I can leave some of it to them, while I pick up the kids from school. It makes it more interesting for everyone.

Whether it’s one child or ten, all of us as mothers are doing the same thing – it’s a balancing act. If my two daughters go on to become mothers, they’ll be the same: you have to have some kind of outlet. You have to have something to call your own. Because when the kids have all left home you still want to be living a full life. And it’s very exciting to have something that you love and you are able to earn money from. The satisfaction and rewards you get from that help to make the juggling act easier.