You could be forgiven for not realizing Upstate Down was a real estate brokerage.
None of the usual accouterments can be found on its window display at its brick-and-mortar store in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Printed listings are replaced with charcoal linen pillows. Acrylic LED-backlit ads, with an ivory vintage vase the size of an overgrown toddler. Inside, gray shelves are stocked with Moroccan rugs and terra-cotta dinnerware sets.
All of this, before customers even catch a whiff of its real estate business on the walls at the back of the office: framed portraits of houses that resemble something closer to art décor than it does marketing.
Upstate Down — a hybrid interior design studio, furnishings store and real estate company — was founded in 2021 by the husband-and-wife and real-estate-agent duo, Jon and Delyse Berry. Bringing every aspect of a home’s life cycle together isn’t entirely novel, they acknowledged. Nor is their leaning into a lifestyle brand. Yet it’s precisely this all-in-one model that has helped Upstate Down stand out among traditional brokerages and algorithm-driven platforms.
“We didn’t just want to be forward-facing as a real estate office,” said Mrs. Berry, Upstate Down’s chief executive. “A home is not just a transaction; it’s where you live, it’s where you love, it’s where you enjoy, and that’s what I felt was missing at other firms.”
Rachel Hyman-Rouse, principal broker and founder of Rouse + Co Real Estate, said it was encouraging to see the creative risks pay off for another boutique brokerage in Rhinebeck. “They’re morphing themselves into a new-age kind of business,” Ms. Hyman-Rouse said of Upstate Down. “I don’t know anybody else who does that, and it’s a unique approach.”
She added that “Delyse has found a niche with a look and design that resonates well with modern buyers — some people buy into it, some people don’t.”
Much like its operations, Upstate Down’s modern pastoral aesthetic — think linen folds, muted tones, aged patina — was honed over many years of experimentation. “It was very much like, let’s throw it up against the wall and see what happens,” said Mr. Berry, 43, Upstate Down’s chief financial officer.
Mrs. Berry, 40, was quick to chime in. “It’s a little more organized chaos than that,” she said. “But things started that way for sure — ready to jump off the cliff.”
‘Young, Naïve and Passionately in Love’
On an April morning in Philadelphia in 2006, Mrs. Berry had a dream so intense that she felt compelled enough to call her parents to tell them about it.
“I was like, I understand more of why I’m here,” Mrs. Berry said. “And it’s to experience love in the physical form.” She admits that this story sounds overly romantic. But that same evening, she met Mr. Berry at a bar.
What began as a flirting game of cat and mouse soon turned into a six-week courtship that ended with the two moving in together — first in Philadelphia, then later in Brooklyn.
“If one our kids told us, ‘Yeah, Dad, I’ve known him for six weeks, we’re going to move in together,’ you’d be like, hell no!” said Mrs. Berry, who has three children with Mr. Berry.
“We were young, naïve and passionately in love,” Mr. Berry said. “We didn’t have anything figured out — we were just like, let’s go!”
‘Dead Broke’
In 2007, more than a decade before establishing Upstate Down, Mrs. Berry ran the Fashion Cafe — a tiny high-end consignment boutique that sold pastries and coffee among articles of clothing in Brooklyn.
“It was terrible,” Mrs. Berry said of the store, laughing. “It was just barely making enough to get by.”
She had opened it with a generous loan from a family who had hired her as an au pair. Though the shop lasted for only a year, it sowed the seeds of her creative ambitions.
Mr. Berry was a low-salaried gym manager at the time, and the Berrys were paying $1,500 in rent for a one-bedroom apartment. “We moved to New York, got engaged and next thing you know, we find ourselves dead broke,” she said.
A chance encounter with a J.P. Morgan stockbroker inspired Mr. Berry to a pursue a career in finance. He quit his job at the gym to study for the required exams, which he passed.
But then came the 2008 financial crisis. So, too, did the news of Mrs. Berry’s pregnancy.
The Berrys, already into their first trimester, relied on Medicaid and $200 in food stamps for several months. “We joke that we used to just eat couscous with a head of broccoli and a can of tuna for like three days straight,” Mrs. Berry said. “Nothing against that — it was delicious, but that’s what it was.”
That May, they got married in Rhinebeck, where Mrs. Berry’s mother lived, and their firstborn arrived five months later. Mr. Berry found work at a bank as Mrs. Berry became a stay-at-home mother.
After welcoming their second child in 2010, the Berrys — drawn by the promise of a better job and a bucolic lifestyle — left the city for the Hudson Valley the following year and bought their first house not long after.
‘I Lost a Bit of That Entrepreneurship’
In the years after moving upstate, Mrs. Berry had their third child and began feeling restless at home. “I loved being a mom, but leaving the city, I lost a bit of that entrepreneurship,” she said. “It was eating me.”
As Airbnb’s footprint grew across the Hudson Valley, Mrs. Berry saw an opportunity to help residents across the 10-county region list their homes for short-term rentals. She turned to her mother, a local interior designer, for early referrals.
One client agreed. Soon more followed.
By the time Mrs. Berry obtained her real estate license, she had already earned the trust of these homeowners, who later tapped her to sell their multimillion-dollar properties. Her commissions, combined with Mr. Berry’s income as a financial adviser, allowed for piecemeal home remodeling projects. A new deck area here, a paint lift there.
The long hours spent under fluorescent lights at a corporate job, however, took its toll on Mr. Berry. “The commute in my car was my favorite part of the day,” he said.
During a trip to Hawaii for their 10-year wedding anniversary in 2018, Mr. Berry, then 36, faced a sobering truth. He was approaching the age his mother was when she died of cancer. “If I had 10 more years left to live,” he paused, “I remembered thinking that I didn’t want to spend them behind a desk.”
He handed in his resignation letter and became a licensed real estate agent. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Berry created a different partnership that became a fourth kind of child: Upstate Down.
‘Most People Would Never Do That’
Behind the farmhouse where the Berrys lived stood an 830-square-foot foreclosed cottage — a structure most people might have torn down, or ignored entirely. Instead, the pair saw potential.
“We bought it and drained Jon’s 401(k) to renovate it,” Mrs. Berry said. “Most people would never do that.”
Mixing business with romance, however, didn’t come without friction. Mr. Berry was starting anew in an entirely different industry and still building out his client list. “We’ve been going to couple’s therapy since 2021,” Mrs. Berry said. “It’s one of our greatest points of the week.”
Their business jump-started in 2020 — thanks in large part to a spike in pandemic-era urban dwellers feeling cooped up at home.
Alissa and Will Malnati hired Upstate Down in late 2021, after the couple moved from the city into a farmhouse in the not-too-far-away village of Cold Spring. While drawn to the home’s original 1850 architecture — wooden ceilings, pine floors — they wanted to imbue it with their love for midcentury modern design.
“Everything’s a little softer,” Mrs. Malnati, 35, said of Upstate Down’s taste. “It’s not as sharp and edgy as the city, which was what we were used to and wanted to escape from.”
Riding the Hudson Valley pandemic wave, the Berrys also quickly sold their main house and freshly renovated cottage as a package deal — allowing them to buy another home and launch the first Upstate Down storefront.
The brand grew so fast that they relocated their shop to a larger space just a few doors down last year. In that time, they’ve expanded their offerings: a monthly newsletter detailing current projects and listings; an online magazine, “Journal,” focused on upstate design and lifestyle; and an employee head count that now boasts 14 agents, an interior design team of four, three part-time sales associates and a store manager.
Across its three enterprises, Upstate Down’s total revenue grew more than 45 percent from 2023 to 2024, Mrs. Berry said. Design, in particular, has picked up traffic in the past two years. “The whole dream was to have each of these departments — selling, buying, reinventing and decorating — breathe on its own,” she said.
More important, the Berrys said, they wanted Upstate Down to become a sort of community hub. Claire and Emily Loughran — sisters from the Hudson Valley who founded & Tread Well, a plant-based skin care company in Hurley, N.Y. — introduced themselves to Mrs. Berry via cold email.
“We heard back from her within 20 minutes,” Emily, 33, said. “And within two hours, she placed an order for our entire line.”
Upstate Down became the business’s first wholesale client, carrying its products a week within launch. “Many of our offerings are inspired by the Hudson Valley, and Upstate Down kind of reflects that, as well,” said Claire, 28.
“They’re refurnishing and redecorating these homes in a way that feels true to the Hudson Valley.”
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