NY TIMES – OH, IT’S LUXURIOUS AT THE TOP
| 12-24-2009 | WWD – Retailers Look to Holiday’s Second Season | |
| 10-23-2009 | ETC – Boulevard Magazine 10-09 | |
| 10-16-2009 | WWD – Americana Manhasset Gets Involved | |
| 09/18/2008 | VERSACE AT HIRSHLEIFER’S | |
| 09/18/2008 | WWD – VERSACE FETES HIRSHLEIFER’S IN-STORE SHOP | |
| 04/18/2008 | CLICK-AND-MORTAR: MALL HITS WEB | |
| 01/30/2008 | WWD – INDUSTRY UPBEAT ON HALSTON PLAN | |
| 10/08/2007 | HIRSHLEIFER’S PREPS NEW SHOE STORE | |
| 12/22/2006 | HEARTS, HARLEYS AND BETTY | |
| 11/15/2006 | GILLES MENDEL | |
| 03/20/2006 | NY TIMES – OH, IT’S LUXURIOUS AT THE TOP | |
| 01/09/2006 | HIRSHLEIFER’S – STYLE LEADER | |
| 12/07/2005 | NY TIMES – I’ll Take Manhasset | |
| 09/27/2005 | WWD – HIGH FASHION FORMULA | |
| 09/08/2005 | NY TIMES – CRITICAL SHOPPER | |
| 11/08/2004 | OPULENT OUTPOSTS – CHANEL BOUTIQUE AT HIRSHLEIFER’S | |
| 10/27/2004 | WWD – RANKING THE INDEPENDENTS | |
| 02-21-2009 | IF EVENINGWEAR IS YOUR QUESTION… | |
| 12-20-2008 | CHANEL HAS EXPANDED | |
| VERSACE OPENS AT HIRSHLEIFER’S |
AT THE AMERICANA MANHASSET, FRANK CASTAGNA’S HIGH END SHOPPING STRATEGY IS PAYING OFF
The suit is a gray pinstripe by Ralph Lauren. The blue and silver tie, Chanel. And the distinctive silver watch with the deep blue dial? “Cartier,” says Frank Castagna, forgoing the proper French elocution to pronounce the “r” at the end.
His impeccable attire for a day at the office suits Castagna’s status as the owner of the Americana Manhasset shopping center, a pinnacle of luxury retailing in America.
But his disarming way of speaking suits Castagna’s background as the man who spent 50 years creating this shopping destination out of a strip mall that once housed a supermarket, a drugstore and a movie theater. With his international wardrobe and approachable manners, Castagna is a man with a deep understanding of a certain local shopper and what that shopper wants.
Which is plenty: a $22,000 Fendi bag in green alligator skin. A pair of distressed Dolce & Gabbana jeans for $850. A Jil Sander casual blue leather jacket for $2,580. The 60 shops at the Americana include the highest-echelon status brands in the world today: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Hermes, Dior, Oscar de la Renta and more, all in a 220,000-square-foot open air setting. Considered a contender with Rodeo Drive and Madison Avenue, it’s a playground for the fashion-obsessed with the net worth to stay in the game.
It’s taken five decades of winnowing out shops that didn’t fit the image and putting just the right ones in their places, but Castagna, 77 says he has finally assembled the mix of coveted labels he’s always envisioned. “It has a cohesive energy to it, and it says what we want it to say,” he said. “That’s this is the home of the great luxury brands, the successful luxury brands.”
To some, it may say, “Don’t shop here if there’s a limit on your credit cards.” But that exclusivity is paying off for retailers there. The Americana brings in the fourth highest sales per square foot of any shopping center in the United States, averaging $1,100, almost triple the figure of a typical enclosed mall.
At the Americana, it’s all about the labels, and that dovetails with the tastes of upscale shoppers today. Nationally, spending at luxury stores has been on a tear in the past three years, up almost 5 percent in 2003, 10 percent in 2004 and 6 percent in 2005, while overall store sales in shopping centers have been up less than 4 percent in each of those years, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
But there’s more to the ascent of the Americana than its merchandise. Castagna has succeeded in linking the center to the surrounding Gold Coast community, tapping into the charity/socialite/hardcore shopping circuit of Long Island. He is on the boards of some of the Island’s leading charities, and the Americana is a frequent site for charity events and other parties.
50TH ANNIVERSARY BASH
Last Wednesday evening, for example, there was fashion gridlock as women in perilous heels and men in well-tailored suits mingled with rapper LL Cool J, who managers to stand out in blinding diamond earrings a matching necklace. They were celebrating the opening of an exhibit of mid-century art and furnishing design to mark the center’s 50th anniversary.
“You can’t turn around at a charity event without seeing representatives from the Americana,” said Nancy Waldbaum, a director of the foundation of the Waldbaum’s supermarket family. “If you go to an event and you don’t see them, you should call the Americana and find out if everyone is ill.”
She has served with Castagna on the boards of several institutions, including the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Healthy System. She is also a loyal Americana Shopper, buying 67 gifts last year at holiday time. She selected them herself, but for help with wrapping and delivery, she used the personal shopping service at the center.
“It’s so user-friendly,” Waldbaum said. Once, when she was pregnant, she needed a gown for a black-tie event. The Escada store at the Americana offered her a black chiffon halter dress with a jeweled collar, then added fabric from another dress to create extra room and sleeves with matching jeweled cuffs.
“If you shop in Manhattan, you can’t get that,” Waldbaum said. “This is still a mom-and-pop entity.”
By design, the service goes well beyond that of a corner store. “It’s not about going to the mall environment where you’re fighting crowds,” said Marshal Cohen, the fashion analyst for the NPD Group market research company in Port Washington. “This is for people who shop for pleasure and treat it as a leisure activity. They want to have a relationship with the brand, be treated like royalty.”
Castagna and his staff make sure of it. “They’re very demanding of the tenants,” said Michael Burke, chief executive of Fendi, which has a store there. “They shop us. If there’s a problem with a sales associate, they call me in Rome.”
Fendi shops in New York or Florida draw a high percentage of tourists, but the Americana shopper is loyal and local, Burke said. “She is a professional shopper. She shops us almost every day. She wants absolute perfect service, and she expects the latest runway looks.”
STARTING AT THE LOW END
That was hardly the ambience of the property of Northern Boulevard at Searingtown Road when Frank Castagna joined his family’s general contracting company in 1956. His vision, even then, was to turn the nondescript collection of stores into the Fifth Avenue and then Henri Bendel as anchor department stores. To survive, Castagna signed long term leases with a discount store, supermarket and other tenants that didn’t fit the plan.
As those leases expired, Castagna Realty, the owner of the shopping center, turned down potentially lucrative tenants to focus instead on luxury. “We realized we had to be strong in one area,” Castagna said.
In the 80’s, he brought in architect Peter Marino to give the center an upscale look with limestone facades, granite sidewalks and seasonal landscaping. All this was designed to appeal to the high-end demographic of the North Shore, where the top 10 zip codes that shop the Americana have an average household income of $154,718, and where country clubs, golf courses and yacht harbors keep residents near home most of the year.
Even so, 8 percent of the shoppers come from Manhattan, drawn by the easy proximity of their favorite shops. “If they have a car and driver, they’re here,” Castagna said.
MERGING COMMERCE, ALTRUISM
The Americana was among the first to link retailing to charity, now a common strategy at department stores. In 1996, Castagna started Champions for Charity, an event held the first week of every December in which customers direct 25 percent of the price of their purchases to various local causes.
Castagna’s own involvement with philanthropy goes beyond business strategy, said Arthur Levine, an apparel executive who lives in Old Brookville. He has alternated with Castagna as president of the Nassau County Museum of Art. “He’s there with an open pocketbook, but it’s more than that. Frank is always there,” Levine said. Castagna is also a friend and donor to politicians from the governor on down.
“If you look at the way he’s dressed and presents himself, you know he’s a perfectionist- he should be in Gentlemen’s Quarterly,” said Carol Wolowitz of Manhasset. She’s served with Castagna or his wife, Rita, on numerous boards, including the museum, hospital, and UJA Federation.
For Wolowitz and her friends, the Americana is a social center. “Everyone meets there for lunch,” she said. “Then you know what happens. You walk around and get into trouble, but it’s pleasant trouble. I love beautiful things, so I’m off and shopping.” Her most recent purchase was a pair of black leather Michael Kors sandals with a natural wedge base, very on-trend for spring.
Wolowitz frequently sees Castagna walking among the shops. When he’s not, he works out of an upstairs office, where he’s brightened by beige walls and carpeting with sailing watercolors and a sculpture of a chess piece, the white queen. Does he play? “Enough to land a few victories,” Castagna said.
Later, on a tour of the shops, the American Creative Director, Deirdre Costa Major, answered a question about Castagna’s chess-playing skills while showing off the styles calculated to sell this spring- a white eyelet lace dress at Prada ($2,195), a tan suede Jimmy Choo handbag with Swarvski crystals ($2,950) at Hirshleifer’s.
“He probably doesn’t have much time to play chess,” she said, and gestured around her. “This is the chess he focuses on most of the time.”
OF A CAREER SHOPPER
An unusually high percentage of shoppers at the Americana Manhasset are reluctant to talk to a reporter. And an usually high percentage of those give the same reason: “Please, I don’t want my husband to know.”
So it fell to Lori Hirshleifer Sills, a fourth-generation member of the family that runs Hirshleifer’s at the Americana Manhasset, to answer the question: Who shops at the all-luxury shopping center?
“She is a customer who knows what she wants,” said Sills, whose store on a recent afternoon hummed with women wanting clothing and bags and shoes by Chanel, Valentino and other look-at-me designers.
“The shopper in New York is very busy with her career. Here, shopping is her career.”
Every season, the Americana owner, Frank Castagna, and its creative director, Deirdre Costa Major, try to stay ahead, attending fashion shows in New York, Milan, and Paris to search for retailers their shoppers will like – cutting edge, but not too edgy.
Americana customers want to be glamorous but don’t want to be fashion victims, Costa Major said. They are practical and family-oriented, often having earned their money – and they do earn plenty of money – as entrepreneurs.
“So the product has to be right,” she said. “They like brands, because brands give you a reliable product. When you have a certain brand, it’s like an advertisement that you’re savvy, you’re part of a club.”
One shopper who was willing to talk fit the profile.
“I shop twice a week,” said Carolee Kass, a baby boomer visiting from Quogue who is partial to handbags from Coach or Louis Vuitton pouches as gifts. How does she have the time? “I don’t do anything else,” Kass laughed. “I used to work. My husband works. I don’t.”
In her shopping bag from Barneys, Kass carried a gift for her self-employed husband – four Lacoste shirts in various colors, a relative bargain at $40 apiece.
She thought he’d wear them on a trip to St. Martin.
But other husbands may stay in the dark about Americana shopping sprees. The Fendi shop at the Americana is home to the Spybag, a burnished leather hobo style that’s been a best seller for three seasons at $2,000. Out of all the Fendi stores, according to Fendi chief executive Michael Burke, “the one at the Americana may have the highest proportion of split payments.”
That means, he explained, that customers divide the cost of one purchase among two or three credit cards. And that means, he added, that spouses stay blissfully unaware of the total price.
