Exclusive: Halstead Property Buys Management Firm Gerard J. Picaso Inc.
Aug. 22, 2014 — UPDATED Aug. 24, 2014 — Terra Holdings' Halstead Property, a residential brokerage with 1,000 brokers throughout the tristate area and a residential management company for more than 180 buildings, has purchased Gerard J. Picaso Inc., one of New York City's earliest co-op and condo property-management firms. Namesake founder Gerard J. Picaso will now lead the Halstead division that bears his name. The change becomes effective Sept. 1.
"There was no plan for a buyout or a sale," Picaso, 68, says. "My plan was: I just keep on working." But about a year ago, "We were at a building interview and the board president asked me, 'What happens if one day you and your partner get hit by a bus? What happens to your company? What's the plan for your employees and your buildings?' We had no plan," he confesses. "We had a plan if either of us would not work anymore," he says of himself and company vice president Susan Axelbank, "but we had no real [succession] plan. A short time after that we were contacted by Halstead."
That company, says Picaso, who made the physical move to its 770 Lexington Avenue address this week, "had all the assets we were looking for: big, stable, with an excellent reputation. Halstead specializes in co-ops and condominiums, which is what we do. I know a lot of the people here; I know a lot of the principals of the companies [it has] purchased in the past. And they all have contracts and, after the contacts expired, they're still here." A sister company now is Terra Holdings' Brown Harris Stevens, founded in 1873.
1970s New York
Picaso — who continues to personally manage eight buildings himself, including one he's had since 1976 — began in real-estate management in 1971, apprenticing under his father, Jose H. Picaso, who had bought the firm Monroe A. Lawrence Inc. in 1969 and renamed it Lawrence-Picaso Inc. "We didn't have email, Twitter, cell phones or any of those things," Picaso recalls. After his father's death in 1971, Gerard Picaso became vice president and later president. In 1982 he broke off to form the company that bears his name. (Lawrence Properties, rooted in the original 1925 company, continues today as well.)
One landmark building Picaso has managed is is the Hotel Des Artistes at 1 W. 67th Street — part of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District and on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Ensconced now at Halstead, "I will still run my buildings as I have in the past. I'll still be in charge of the men running the buildings," Picaso says, adding that he and his staff's email addresses and phone numbers remain the same. "But I will not have to worry anymore about paying the rent and all the other expenses associated with running a management company. That's a tremendous load gone."
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This article was updated to add additional details about the predecessor companies.