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The History of Nest

I started this business about 15 years ago. Before I was a designer and a general contractor, I was a graphic designer. After that, I made a list of things that I love. One is building and the other is design. So I married the both and started Nest. I had the experience to design. But what I didn’t have was the experience to build in New York City. So I put an ad out for somebody that did – that does – and I ended up with my partner Ben, who does the building, and we ended up with another partner, Mike, who does the day-to-day. So between design and build, we create these amazing spaces in New York.

Meet the Founder

My biggest hobby is rock climbing. I’ve been climbing for 30 years. We’d climb up in New Paltz, a place called The Gunks, which is world famous rock climbing. You have to put in your own gear and climb. So I’ve been doing that with that community for, like I said, 30 years. Also climbing around the United States. I actually moved out of New York City after 28 years upstate, so I can be closer to climbing. But we bought and we bought a house on an apple orchard, and I ended up renovating the whole house. But I also ended up spending the last three years renovating. So that’s what I do now. I talk, I only talk climbing, but I actually renovate for a living. And, that’s what I’ve been doing to our house. And it’s beautiful. I like, love it. And it really is a labor of love, but it takes up all my time. So in another year or so, I should be done. And then I’ll just get back into climbing. My other passion that I started is designing and building furniture, which I’ve been doing now for about a year and a half, and I love it. My other passion that I started is designing and building furniture, which I’ve been doing now for about a year and a half, and I love it. I have a passion for cooking. I’m kind of like a gourmet cook. I hate that word, but I’m like a fancy schmancy cook. AndI could spend all day just, you know, picking out vegetables and produce and meats and then, you know, it would all these amazing recipes from all these great chefs. I can make anything and I and I do. So I’m always having people over, you know, for food and for drinks. And I’m kind of like a mixologist in a way. And since we live on an apple orchard these days, I’ve been making a lot of hot toddies and apple drinks with liquor, which is great.

Nest Remodeling Tour: The Living Space

So, Steve, Ben, Mike, the Nest Team helped us renovate our apartment. Almost a full gut renovation. They did this whole fireplace area, which – there was an existing fireplace with some old brick there. They found some material that they could cover the brick with and extended it out to the left to create that space for the wood, and using that space for the wood, they sort of designed a very, you know, smart and cute way to hide all the cords that lead into the TV behind the stone that’s on the front.


And there’s like a secret compartment above the, the cavity where the wood is that holds our Apple TV and all of our other equipment. So you don’t have to see anything, which is really clever. And so we really love how this area turned out. They also fully renovated our kitchen, pulled everything out and replaced the whole thing, in addition to adding on this little office over here, this little desk space, which is my work from home office. You know, I love how Steve, Mike, Ben, and the team designed the kitchen with the wood, which brings in the warmth and then the light and the dark colors to really accent. I love the minimalist look. It was amazing working with Mike and Steve, Ben, the whole Nest team, because we didn’t work with an architect. We didn’t work with a designer.

They helped us design everything from a contracting perspective, but also from a design esthetic perspective. Steve has a really good eye, is really good taste. He’s great at, you know, drawing things out in CAD and really giving you options to look at. So you get to cut out having another person, another opinion, more complication, just really seamless because they’re really like an all in one shop.

So we fully redid the kitchen. I can’t tell you how happy I am with how everything’s turned out. Everything’s just clean lines, things work beautifully. These cabinets are, you know, a nice crowd pleaser. They also open up nice and high. Everything’s very adjustable. And, you know, we’re a family where we cook every day. We like having big meals. We have a big table. We have a huge island. They found this amazing material that could be basically joined in the unit. And so we didn’t have to crane in a big piece of stone through the window, which would have been prohibitively expensive. And I really didn’t want to seem visible because I love this minimalist look. And all credit to Steve and Nash, because without them, there’s no way we would have even known this existed.

So everything about this kitchen, there’s not one thing I would change I love it. We eat here every day and if we especially work from home, I’m here all the time.

Nest Remodeling Tour: The Bathroom

This bathroom, which needed an entire gut renovation. Nothing was – none of the walls were square. Everything was falling apart. They squared it all out, built in this amazing tile all the way up the wall. That was all Steve’s idea. I really love the visual effect of that coming from the floor up the wall.

It’s, you know, my son’s bathroom. It’s definitely nicer than mine, which we haven’t yet renovated, but we’re we’re thinking about it. I love this nice long trough sink. And again, the black accent on the white I just think looks really sharp and with the built in toilet it’s. I wish I have pictures to show you what it looked like before.

It is totally not recognizable. We’ve got a pocket door that actually, you know, a lot of doors don’t work very well. This one slides beautifully. It’s perfect in a narrower hallway. My daughter always wants to use my son’s bathroom because it’s so much nicer than hers. So we’re all kind of fighting for this one because it’s the nicest one in the house.

And, you know, just, all the attention to detail that Steve, Mike, Ben put into all the work they do here is why we’ve recommended them to friends who have done their own renovation, and why we’ve used Mike and Ben more than once and Steve more than once to do work in the apartment. And as we continue to, you know, maybe do our bathroom and finish things in our bedroom, Nest is the only team that we would ever consider.

Proudly Serving Tribeca and Beyond

So we’re in Tribeca here, which is one of the most beautiful spots in the city. It’s all basically lofts and not too many brownstones, but just big, beautiful lofts and a lot of designers here. We do tons of work around the area. We just finished a project, actually, right over here. 3500 square foot renovation. We’re doing three other projects right now in Tribeca. We also work in the Upper and Upper East Side. We work on the Upper West Side. We do work in Chelsea. We do work in Soho, all around the city.

Nest Remodeling Tour: The Office

Another another piece that nest helped us with was building this home office and kind of home gym. It was just open space before because it was just an open loft. And with both of us working from home, we wanted to add an office. They designed the whole space, created a little nook in here for a desk built in these beautiful doors, which slide just so smoothly.


Everything about it is just great. My husband works here every day. I work at the other desk. We have privacy. If we want. We could use it as a fourth bedroom if we need to. So it’s been, just a wonderful addition to our apartment that we’ve been waiting for for years and years and finally got it done, about a year ago.

The Road to Interior Designer

My background was in design and my studio is right up the block, right there, where I spent seven years working with clients like Nikon and Nokia and Good Morning America and TV and Altec Lansing. But then I gave it up, and now I design and rebuild apartments and renovate them in the most beautiful city in the world. So when I was looking for my studio before I ended up being down the road, I met the owner of this building, and I told him I wanted to break one of the walls. And what he did was he ran out, got a sledgehammer and started pounding his way through the windows and the door and made a big hole and goes, “Here’s a hole.” He goes, “If you want to make it bigger, make it bigger.” I thought that was hilarious. So that was my first introduction in real estate in New York.