The sea of patrons paused at Cipriani’s as the Queen of Manhattan Real Estate entered the restaurant while an eager staff swarmed around her as if she were truly holding court. A tiger with a tough reputation? A title that connotes the evil imagery of the late Leona Helmsley? On the contrary, Dolly Lenz is one of the nicest people I know.Dolly and I were having lunch with interior designer Moises Esquenazi to discuss "design driven" real estate projects in Manhattan and the Hamptons that might be appropriate for Mr. Gatsby’s Travel Club. Being the highest producing real estate broker in the City, Dolly would help identify properties with renovation potential, and Esquenazi would take the creative lead on the projects. These properties would then be represented by Mr. Gatsby's for short term and vacation rentals. We tossed around various ideas and analyzed timing in the market.
The meeting was interrupted frequently by friends, fans and clients stopping by the table to say hello and to ask Dolly for sound bites of information on the market similar to the ones she gives as a guest on CNBC.
As she ate liver, Dolly offered her opinions on the market from both an intuitive and analytical vantage. She’s a true believer in the value of Manhattan Real Estate as a “blue-chip” value. Although the market is currently overbuilt with many new projects still being completed, the bottom line is that there is a very limited supply of land on the island.
Dolly discussed the 'data’ in relation to pricing and absorbing the current inventory. This included current employment and compensation trends in the City, Buyer Confidence, as well as the lack of liquidity and credit available in the high-end market. Most of her “cash’ buyers actually borrowed against personal lines of credit secured by “liquid” assets in investment vehicles such as hedge funds. These liquid vehicles proved not to be so liquid after all, and as the values of the funds plummeted, her high-end buyers were squeezed as their lines of credit were reduced or called altogether.
She thought that we had not reached in the bottom of the market; Buyers are still suffering from a crisis in confidence.
It was a shame Dolly couldn’t distribute some of her personal confidence into the market. She was very impassioned in describing New York as if the City is an animated character welcoming ambition. She emphasized that the brightest minds and the most talented people tend to gravitate to the City, and this is always a catalyst in moving the ‘data’. She had grown up to parents of Portuguese heritage of modest means, and she created herself as the Queen of Manhattan Real Estate at a relatively young age. Spending a couple of hours with Dolly, I was quite confident she would maintain her title for quite some time.
As we were leaving court at almost four o’clock in the afternoon, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem arrived for lunch wearing matching baseball caps. The Queen flashed a smile of hello to them and proceeded to the kitchen to congratulate the chef on the liver.
Such is “Keeping it Real” on a Friday afternoon at Cipriani’s….
