Wind, Water, and Interior Design:
Feng Shui Comes to Soho
By Yael Kohen
Staff Reporter of the Sun
The steel elevator of this 4,300 square foot Soho loft opens to a calming yellow wall and a cavernous space punctuated only by a row of 19th century unfinished columns and unfinished brick walls. The Broome Street apartment, one of three owned by Brazilian painter Junia Neiva, is meant to be a pairing of old and new and, she says, a meeting of East and West.
Ms. Neiva called on a feng shui master to make sure these $3.9 million loft spaces aren’t just trendy but, more importantly, spiritually balanced.
Feng shui has been an integral part of Chinese construction for centuries. It means wind and water and a feng shui master is supposed to design space and place furniture in a way that creates unbroken energy flows. “You walk in and say ‘ahhh,’ it just feels good,” said Insignia Douglas Elliman vice president Ed Hardesty, one of loft’s brokers.
According to Ms. Neiva, every element from the color of the rooms to the placement of master bedroom was given special care. Yellow represents energy. Rose signifies majestic mountains and is meant to enhance the apartment’s energy flow. While typically a feng shui master also places furniture – puts a desk where creativity can flow more easily – for example, Ms. Neiva decided to leave that up to the buyer. She didn’t say whether buyers could contact her feng shui master for help in that department.
R.D. Chin is an architect, designer, and feng shui master. He has worked on numerous lofts and said that since September 11 business has picked up as New Yorkers have turned to their homes for solace and warmed to the idea of rebalancing their life energy by redecorating their apartments. “After 9-11, I got so many more phone calls because they realized that their space has to be their castle,” Mr. Chin said. Since the September 11 attacks, Mr. Chin said his business has increased by 25%.
Feng shui has long been an important component in construction in Asia. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building was constructed with feng shui energy in mind. Its escalators rise at different angles to better take advantage of the energy from surrounding hills. More recently, the New York branch of the Standard Charter Bank, a British bank that deals primarily in Asia, hired out Mr. Chin to design their 23rd St. location after the bank, formerly housed in the World Trade Center, was displaced. Standard Charter’s head of the corporate affairs for the Americas, Rory Hayden, said the city’s branch of the century-old bank has abided by the principles of feng shui for the past 20 years, including their time in the World Trade Center. Standard Charter did not lose any employees when the towers fell and some employees felt, Ms. Hayden said, that good feng shui was their savior.
For Ms. Neiva, a devout feng shui enthusiast, the art is hardly a mere superstition brought on by the September 11 tragedies. She started construction of her building more than two years ago. Since then, even Mr. Hardesty, a broker of the loft, has jumped on the bandwagon. Mr. Hardesty can now count himself among those New Yorkers who turned to feng shui to find some inner peace after the September 11 attacks. Mr. Hardesty, who lived directly across the street from the World Trade Center and whose windows were blown to bits, said after the attacks he and his pregnant wife decided to leave the city for a quieter life in Westchester and asked Mr. Chin to redesign his new home. “I really think it makes a difference,” Mr. Hardesty said, adding that even his boss hired Mr. Chin for his services.
Ms. Neiva agrees, even if she opted to exclude Mr. Chin’s Buddhist blessing. Instead, Ms. Neiva opted to sanctify the space herself, by burning sage along to the soothing sound of bells, Ms. Neiva strolled through her entire building – from the basement up – verbalizing positive thoughts. “I wanted to have the best energy possible for everyone,” she said.
Please watch the video about the Broome Street building
