How one luxury building is reimagining amenities.
Picture this: You wake up in Matouk linens in a bright apartment filled with beautiful objects. You make an espresso, then head downstairs to the Equinox-designed gym. Next, you meet a few friends in your building’s coworking lounge — which feels very Soho House — to answer emails and take calls. You chat with another resident who, it turns out, works in your field, and you exchange cards. After work, you head to listen to a big-name novelist here as part of the speaker series curated by your building’s “director of experience.” Before you head home for the night, you text a couple of neighbors to ask if they’re going to the building’s wine tasting tomorrow night.
This is everyday living at The Set, a new concept luxury residence in Hudson Yards, New York. We spoke with Hailey Sarage, The Set’s SVP of Development, about how her team designed a building redefining community.
A Wellness-First Space
To create a space that perfectly serves the needs of intellectual, driven, and successful people, Sarage and her team turned to the people who knew best: the residents.
“We started visualizing The Set over five years ago. We had data from residents at our other buildings throughout the city and were able to make some innovative decisions,” Sarage says. “Our residents wanted communities that were super focused on wellness — our gyms, especially the ones that Equinox designed for our buildings, are always well-populated. They were also starting to work from home more — and this was before Covid accelerated that trend. Basically, the theme was: convenience, convenience, convenience.”
With that in mind, Sarage and her team asked themselves: What would a building look like where residents never really had to leave?
“The key was servicing and programming,” says Sarage. “We wanted to make life easy for everybody, which is essential for overall wellness.”
By starting with a service-centered approach, the team realized that residents could live and thrive at The Set without thinking twice about day-to-day needs. “You move into your beautifully designed, fully furnished unit, where you wake up in the morning and head for the building bakery for coffee,” she says. “You work out of the co-working lounge for free all; then you have a gym class at night hosted by our directors or one of our experience partners. Then you have a cocktail in the resident-only lounge. We wanted to make life easy for everybody, which is essential for overall wellness. All you really need to bring is a toothbrush — actually, honestly, we can arrange that for you, too.”
“Think of it as a Vertical Neighborhood.”
Perhaps one of The Set’s best amenities is an intangible one: built-in networking and community.
“We have a diverse group of residents, many of whom work from home. It’s easy for them to go up to the co-working lounge on the 44th floor to take their meetings and have a presentation already set up on the screen by the directors of experience,” says Sarage. “And because other people work from home in the building, everyone gets to network — to talk about their businesses and their ideas with their neighbors. They're all fascinating, dynamic people, and our residents make the community what it is. And that’s really what we’re about — The Set was built on the dream of a better way of doing community.”
And it’s working better than the team could have imagined. Sarage mentions Jessica Dang, a resident who expanded her wellness brand by moving into The Set, where she networked with other residents. Her live-work approach to business recently landed her a feature story in The Wall Street Journal.
More than a Concierge
Of course, it’s the experience directors that make the Set what it is. “It’s a little like a five-star hotel concierge, but it’s more than that,” Sarage says. “They think about The Set holistically —the amenities and programming and services — to make sure that we're curating the lifestyle that our residents expect and deserve.”
When you move in (if you’re so lucky), you’ll meet with one of the directors to get a thorough introduction to your apartment and the building’s amenities and perks. The experience directors also put together monthly events, many of which are wellness-related, and offer support for residents who want to put on their own programming.
Those events might include a chef tasting at Greywind, The Set’s restaurant run by Chef Dan Kluger, a thought-provoking Q&A with a wellness innovator, or a candle-making class. Then, there are the personal training office hours in the gym. “You can pop in and ask a personal trainer whatever questions you have — How do I get more effective results when doing this? Or can you give me some ideas on targeting these muscles,” she says.
Ultimately, The Set’s success comes down to people who want to live well and fully. “Our residents are smart — they're well-well-educated. They want to have conversations with their neighbors, to learn new things, to live holistically, and that's part of the community we built."