LIVINGSTON MANOR — In a novel approach to a 21st century real estate office, Catskills and Hudson Valley brokerage Country House Realty has teamed up with Spruce Home Goods to share space at 47B Main Street in Livingston Manor, Sullivan County’s fastest-growing business district.

Eager for a presence in a town, but reluctant to invest in a conventional real-estate office staffed, with desks and phones, Grimes envisioned a place to gather in a place that attracts metro New York visitors and weekenders. To create a shared space by developing a partnership with a real estate adjacent business serves to minimize costs while boosting client crossover.

Already a destination business in the river town of Callicoon, Spruce Home Goods brings the sophisticated eye and professionalism of owner Lori Grant to Main Street, Livingston Manor, with synergies for both companies. 

There is already overlap between Country House’s buyers and devotees of Grant’s style, as they’ve found from posts on Instagram and from day one of their soft opening in early May.

While Country House founder Jennifer Grimes does have a separate office in the space, the primary real estate area, aka The Fishbowl, is more of a living room, where clients and agents can relax and have a drink from the coffee bar, or head outside to the large patio shared with Sunshine Colony, the wine bar next door.

Says Grimes, “Real estate is always about relationships, and in our increasingly digital world, you can’t overestimate the power of face-to-face interaction; of spending quality time that’s separate from rushing from property to property. 

During an off-site last fall the team discussed the value of being an active part of a community. Working remotely as we all do, we were missing that connectedness. Our new space has already delivered this feeling of being plugged into the town, and we only expect that to grow,” she said.