• Barbara Centrone Interiors

  646-321-9575

  As the real-estate market has finally topped, “staging”—the practice of set-dressing an apartment to boost the sale price—has become an ultraspecialized niche. Barbara Centrone is a former interior designer and set decorator, and her background in film and TV gives her a leg up with clients like James Gandolfini and Roland Emmerich, whose Tribeca loft is about to go up for sale. While most stagers simply conceal clutter and reconfigure furnishings, Centrone does a simple but thorough redecoration to create a well-proportioned space, styled to sell. On the Upper East Side, she may haul in designer furniture to transform a neutral space into a sleekly modern Italian room; downtown, that shapeless loft may sprout a geometric sculpture and a painting borrowed from a local gallery. What to do for a room with an arched stained-glass wall? Bring in an antique thronelike chair and a standing candelabra, and make the room the hero instead of the villain. Centrone deals in properties that sell for $2 million and up but occasionally does smaller jobs. Prices range from $2,500 to about $15,000—and trust us, you’re more than likely to make it back.

From the 2006 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine