In the world of New York City real estate, it was a given that Zoe Elghanayan would step into the family business.
Her father and two of his brothers started a real estate company, Rockrose, with $100,000 from their father in 1970. In 2009, the business split into two, with her father and one of her uncles heading up the new TF Cornerstone. Relatives in her generation also work in real estate, including her older brother. Following in their footsteps, she is now a principal and vice president.
Growing up, though, Ms. Elghanayan was more interested in her family’s involvement in the arts as philanthropists and collectors. “I did not have any real intention of embarking on real estate,” she said. She studied art theory at the New School and worked in art galleries and at Sotheby’s. But in 2016, she joined TF Cornerstone, realizing that she had perhaps glamorized the art world and eschewed the family business for fear of perceptions of nepotism. She said she had wanted to be successful on her own. “I didn’t really like the idea of an opportunity being given to me,” she said. “But in retrospect, all opportunities are, in some way, given to you.”
Ms. Elghanayan, 35, took it and made it her own. Art curation has become part of her job, and she is filling TF Cornerstone buildings throughout the city with design, murals, décor and sculptures that have transformed lobbies into galleries and art studios.
“I had no idea how dynamic my role would be — it looked far just above and beyond what I could have ever imagined, and I feel far more creatively inclined in this role than I ever did working in the arts,” Ms. Elghanayan said.
Placing art in buildings is not new, but Ms. Elghanayan said that the care she was taking meant that TF Cornerstone was not filling common spaces with cheap, mass-produced artwork.
“I have seen some very nice, well-done art and art installations in rental properties, but I’ve also seen a lot of very budget-friendly things that were probably just ordered online and in mass quantity and placed all over the place,” she said. “In general, I try to lean on the side of things that are just going to almost seem like it was made with the building, blend in with the building.”
On a recent day at 595 Dean Street, an 800-unit rental building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that she developed, Ms. Elghanayan pointed out the art she had procured for the common spaces and the model units. She discovered some artists through social media, others by visiting sample sales — a trio of mirrors (Bower Studios, she pointed out), sofas (Trnk) and a Pac-Man arcade game machine (she ordered two sets).
“I’m a sentimental collector of just anything,” Ms. Elghanayan said. “Salvaging these artifacts and reusing them in some way and making it functional speaks to me deeply.”
She gave Mark Jupiter, a Brooklyn-based designer, the task of incorporating a solid brass and gilded banister railing she had found at a TF Cornerstone building at 230 Park Avenue South into a custom walnut steel table in the residents’ lounge at 595 Dean.
“We basically had to take it apart, re-engineer it slightly and then come up with a design that would integrate it, that would work, and then fabricate it,” Mr. Jupiter said.
“She has a true artist’s eye,” said Mr. Jupiter, who has worked with Ms. Elghanayan for about eight years. “She strikes me as a steward of fine things and someone that, unlike many developers who care but don’t really care, understands what it is to create art and have art around you.”
Art Deco and designs by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright serve as inspirations for the designs of her buildings and the artwork within them, Ms. Elghanayan said.
“I definitely don’t just select things based off of what I would like, because I am very aware that my specific taste is not for everyone,” she said. “But I think I have a fairly good idea of what won’t offend anyone.”
TF Cornerstone has 25 residential buildings, a portfolio that allows Ms. Elghanayan to be creative in how she sources artwork. And she works with designers to realize her vision.
At the Max, a 1,028-unit apartment building on West 57th Street that is named after her brother, Max Elghanayan, who died in 2018, Ms. Elghanayan hired a graphic designer to create a mural on a concrete wall across from the building.
Ms. Elghanayan’s latest project is a new, two-building structure on Malt Drive in Long Island City in Queens. The neighborhood has no shortage of boxy high-rises dotting the sky, many of which overlook Manhattan. An 11-minute walk from the nearest subway, the 1,386-unit building has spacious rental units, a generous amenity package and artwork curated by Ms. Elghanayan.
Caroline McKeough, a principal at the interior architecture and design firm C McKeough Unlimited, and the artist Matthew Shlian were enlisted for the Art Deco-style building. Mr. Shlian designed a trio of geometric portraits in the lobby. Ms. McKeough designed the cream-colored lobby, the common areas and the amenity spaces.
“With Malt Drive, we had these vast spaces to deal with, and we wanted to make it so that it feels like you’re on a journey or you’re on a procession as you’re moving through,” Ms. Elghanayan said.
But in a city on the go, with residents coming and going, moving in and moving out, do people stop to appreciate good design? Ms. Elghanayan thinks they do.
“I feel confident that, at face value, they’re very appealing and will spark some sort of interest from any tenant,” she said.
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