Michael Bruno to Launch Food Mecca in Hudson Valley
After launching 1stdibs and Housepad App, the forward-thinking entrepreneur has ambitious plans for a major cultural and culinary project
He’s still one of the largest shareholders and active in the promotional, but not the decision-making, activities of 1stdibs, the online company he founded that revolutionized and revitalized the antiques and flea market businesses all over the world. But Michael Bruno is busier than ever.
He started being intrigued by apps some four years ago—about the time he decided to move to Tuxedo Park, New York, into a big house, which, of course, needed a lot of management. Soon he was developing Housepad App—connected to your smart phone—that allows homeowners to take remote control of everything that goes on and into their homes. The free app also allows the homeowner to communicate with everyone who works in and around the house, and to make it easy for those people to do the jobs they are asked to do. For example, a homeowner can send a message on Sunday to the housekeeper who will be coming in on Monday. Or one can post photographs on the way one’s oh-so-particular designer had placed the tchotchkes in special vignettes, so everything can be put back in its proper place. “If you gave instructions only once, how much time would you save?” asked Bruno, who also uses the app to catalog all the contents of various rooms.
Two screenshots of the housepad app show how to keep tabs and manage the housekeeping details that need taking care of when you are not home. Photo: Photos Courtesy Michael Bruno
A to-the-trade version of Housepad allows designers to catalog not only how a house looks when done, but can include the invoices and information on every item in it—from the sofa to the large painting that hangs over it—so that in ten years, when the homeowner might want to sell something, they know where they bought it, and how much they paid for it.
But that’s not all that’s going on with Michael Bruno. He’s also involved in an ambitious cultural, real estate, and culinary project under the aegis of his Tuxedo Hudson Company. “My goal is to combine what’s already in the region—access to nature, with 70,000 acres of state parks, and fashion shopping—at the Woodbury Commons outlet shops, with all the great food the Hudson Valley can offer.”
Buying up many of the late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings along Route 17 between Sloatsburg, New York, and Tuxedo is Bruno’s first step in creating what he called “venues for experimental food” between the two towns that had became run down when the thruway came to the area and bypassed the 20-minute stretch of road. “I’m playing a kind of Monopoly,” explained Bruno. “I’m up to 14 buildings on nine properties—and counting!”
