Couple Sued over "Ugly" IKEA Kitchen

(AP)  A wealthy Icelandic couple is being sued for installing a cheap IKEA kitchen into an apartment they rented out at a swank hotel in New York City.

The lawsuit filed in Manhattan Wednesday alleges that Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his wife installed an "ugly" kitchen from the low-cost household furnishings store into the 16th-floor apartment at the Gramercy Park Hotel.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of the Paramount Realty Group of America Corp. claims the couple rented the apartment out for about $300,000, then failed to make promised renovations on time.

When they did, the lawsuit claims the kitchen was unsuitable for such a luxurious home.

Johannesson helped turn investment company Baugur Group into a powerhouse of retailing in Europe.

There was no phone listing for Johannesson at his home.

[SanDesigns]

I have always loved stores like IKEA for the exciting well-organized life style furnishings they provide for so many people at an affordable cost. I have remodeled homes most of my adult life using IKEA for the kitchen cabinetry, etc. finding buyers on the first day or two the homes were on the market who were willing to pay the full asking price. There is a popular website called IKEAFANS.com started by howeowners in a very exclusive area of the San Francisco Bay Area after putting IKEA kitchens in their million dollar hillside homes that were the envy of their friends who had spent 4 times more on kitchens from other places and wished they too had used IKEA for their own kitchens instead of who they used. So it's your choice, use IKEA if you are smart enough....or find yet another foolish way to throw away your money, Americans. That is how we are seen by the rest of the world anyway....too much money....too little brains.

[ksmit2]

Their judgment should be having to pay Mario Buotta or Miles Redd to redo
the whole place. Sister Parish would be aghast.

[toldyouso21]

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HOTELS AND APARTMENTS IN NYC:

1. The Hotel Grammercy Park is not a hotel like the Hilton or Sheraton and most certainly is not like La Quinta or Fairfield or Holiday Inn. It is a series of apartments and people BUY the apartments.

2. The avg apartment in a place like GP sells for over 1 million dollars.

3. GP is not suing the couple, the company which owned the apartment which was SUBLET to the couple is suing the couple. That would be a realty group.

4. IN NYC you pay a lot for your address, for the doorman, for security, for exclusivity and certain access rights--but mostly you pay to live above a certain street number (in the 80's or 90s or or near 5th Ave or Park Ave, etc) The more money you have, the more you want to live in certain areas.

5. Restaurants,stores, etc treat their clientele based on where they live and who they are--this is why Oprah could not get into a certain private sale--she might be uber rich but she did not have the right address and to have money in NY and to be in the right social circles are Two very DIFFERENT things

6. Subletting is what ANY owner of any one of the apartments can do. They may be out of town or out of the country and want to make extra money. Or this Apartment may be on the market to sell and in the meantime, the group representing that apt makes money or floats the bills by leasing it out--either way, they hoped to get their kitchen redone.

7. IN recession free times, this same apart might have been rented out for over 1 million a year

8. Or in recession free times this same apart would NEVER have been rented out as it would have a long list of rich people waiting for an opening who would jump at a chance to buy it.

9. Raw space and ruined buildings are often sold in NYC and even if it takes about a million to fix them up, 2000 sq foot spaces with no walls, no plumbing and with bricks and floors fallen in have sold for over a million dollars .

Obviously this property was being managed and was on the market to sell. GP does not usually rent because those who live at the GP are very rich and usually buy. This property might have been handed over (they would not want a foreclosure so a group or realty co would have taken over for the beleagured owner and then rented out the space until it could be sold--they would do this to keep the name of the hotel from being smudged with the dreaded idea of any person living there being in financial trouble and they would do so hoping they could hang on to it until times are better.


So whoever now owns it or manages it is suing this couple and part of the deal for getting a multimillion dollar address so cheaply was the agreement that this couple would renovate. The question is--did they do it on the cheap and can that be proven. Those who are shocked at the cost of this rental or the deal to renovate do not know the condition of NY property since the late 1970s. by then, even in SoHo, you might pay 700 to 2 million dollars what in the rest of the country could never be sold (like a dump of a place in a building) NYC has housing prices similar to those in Europe. Small amounts of space like 900 sq feet could easily go for around a million dollars in places like Manhattan in the 1980s and it went up from there.

[redwilma]

That was interesting. Thanks.

[toldyouso21]

What is classy furniture in America? Furniture from Pottery barn or Crate and barrel? Furniture from Kittles or Ralph Lauren or Starr Furniture or Nebraska furniture mart? Furniture from your local design house?

Do most Americans KNOW that most furniture sold are cheap knock offs that are just priced high?

If you buy Drexel or Henredon you are getting knock offs that are hardwoods with cherry or another thin sheet of veneered wood on top. It is like furniture from the 800s or earlier in shape only. In earlier times, veneer was used on furniture too--but the underlying wood was high quality as well as the veneer and veneer was limited to burled woods.

When you pay 5 to 6000.00 for a Henredon sofa now--you are paying a lot for not much. Neither the wood the carvings or the substrate or the fabrics are high quality but the nouveau riche do not realize this.

so they buy the Ethan Allen or Starr Furniture and have it reupholstered by Waverly or (if they have a lot of money) Scalamandre or if they have even more money--Fortuny. But that is lipstick on a pig.

Many Americans are too lazy and too self conscious to take the time to learn about architecture, furniture or clothing designs but they are arrogant enough to be snobs when they should not be. If the Scandinavian couple plays it right; they can make the owners of the hotel look like fools for what they tried to sue for. The premise is simple: You don't berate the aesthetics of any person if you do not know what you are talking about. If the lawyer for the couple finds out that "acceptable apartments" included cheap (yet fashionable or 'classy' looking knock offs) then even if this case does go to court--they will win their case. The hotel owner better hope that most of the kitchens in the rest of the building had those kitchen pieces imported from chateaus in Europe or obscure monasteries (yes people tear out entire kitchens in castles and import and reinstall them here in the states) because if the faux or the relatively inexpensive is used then what we have here is a difference in taste NOT an attempt to cheapen the hotel. Intent will have to be proven here and that can be very dicey.

[toldyouso21]

Maybe to them---IKEA was wonderful. It is a scaled down version of modern Scandinavian furniture. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The couple will win this lawsuit if they have similar tastes in their own home. And who RENTS out an apartment and then has to renovate it anyway? What exactly was the 300K for if the owner also wanted his apartment redone? They rented (not bought) for the opportunity to remodel the apartment?

[P0ST1ING_AWAY]

by legacyABQ2 February 26, 2010 2:51 PM EST
I must really scrape the bottom of the barrel. I always thought IKEA was classy!!
========================================================
Have ever been in an IKEA ?????
Classy ????

[toldyouso21]

IKEA has furniture which approximates the streamlined look of furniture called "midcentury modern" which was high fashioned furniture produced by companies like Knoll, Heywood Wakefield, Saarinen, Holmsgaard, etc in the 1960s. The original furniture from that era can sell for anywhere from about 2000.00 for one chair to over a million for one chair (depending on provenance).

People should realize that when they shop at their local furniture stores or frequent such places as Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel or Ralph Lauren or Pennys or IKEA--you are getting a KNOCK off and reproduction of an original furniture design. If you shop at most home decor places that furniture you buy is often made of pressed wood or cheaper hardwood that has been veneered and styled to resemble furniture from a certain bygone era or by a certain designer. People who are newly wealthy run out to buy this stuff and think it shows taste--it doesn't. It shows ignorance since the REAL THING can often still be found at auction and often bought for less than the copy and is worth a lot more--it just takes a little homework and diligence.

In the case of IKEA---IKEA is a take on Mid Century modern Scandinvian designs from the 1950s -1970s. It is cheaper and made of birch or other woods but it is no different than Pottery Barn or Crate and barrel in that it is simply a venue to bring a certain look to the masses. IKEA or Scandinavian modern has more people who like it in countries such as Holland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and of course Scandinavia. For the sake of "old money" even if it is fake, cheap crap--most Americans want their "rich furniture" to resemble the type of stuff that would have been originally been made in the 1700s or early 1800s (Ala Georgian/Sheraton/Hepplewhite/Queen Anne)

Because Americans tend to be at least 10 to 20 years behind the times in furnishings and at least 5 years behind the times in fashion--often what is considered haute couture in furniture and clothes receives a thumbs down in America. IKEA as a brand selling knock down pegged together furniture was popularized in the States in the 1990s--it had been going strong in Asia (in it purer and truer form--meaning real furniture and not pegged up) since the late 1960s.

New York may be fashion forward but in many ways the clientele are trended toward old fashioned elegance even if it is fake and veneered.

This couple probably installed what THEY considered to be state of the art and in Italy or Japan it may have been welcomed. But the owner of this hotel knows his clientele--if they want tall Georgian cabinetry with granite counters and deep moldings with the refrigerator fronted with wood--then that is what they want and that is what he wants in the kitchen. The problem is more cultural and cultural aesthetics than it is where stuff was bought. If he did not have parameters about what type of design the kitchen could have--then that is his own fault. You cannot legislate beauty or taste but you can legislate quality.
This will not be a cut and dried lawsuit it is like someone suing for a bad haircut--if it is a butcher job it is a slam dunk but if it is just a matter of personal taste--the case goes OUT.

[ksmit2]

Boy, I thought I had problems. When I read of people having to deal
with burdens like this, I am ashamed of myself.
Imagine, if you will, a three hundred thousand dollar apartment, and then
it has a "cheap" kitchen. Truly an outrage.

[justsane-2009]

maybe i don't live in the real world, but since when are renters expected to make renovations, particularly when they have paid over a quarter of a million dollars in rent?

[formrusmcsgt]

The owners are being sued, not the renter.

[toldyouso21]

(AP) A wealthy Icelandic couple is being sued for installing a cheap IKEA kitchen into an apartment they rented out at a swank hotel in New York City. "

Lord: Please save us all from the dyslexic, ignorant or just plain illiterate bloggers..........

In New York, Apartments are routinely bought or sold for well over a million dollars so to rent one out for 300K is very cheap indeed. Grammercy Park at one time boasted apartments that SOLD for over 13 million dollars, not to mention the fees one had to still pay per year for parking, the doormen and other services.

If the couple was allowed to rent an apartment there for 300K and was expected to renovate (more likely allowed to renovate) then it says something about the state of real estate in NYC also.

[jxknowles]

'Ugly' is in the eye of the beholder.

[ralphing]

If the couple had left a bag of those tasty Swedish meatballs in the fridge, this all could have been adverted.