You could be forgiven for not realizing Upstate Down was a real estate brokerage.
None of the usual accouterments can be found on its window display at its brick-and-mortar store in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Printed listings are replaced with charcoal linen pillows. Acrylic LED-backlit ads, with an ivory vintage vase the size of an overgrown toddler. Inside, gray shelves are stocked with Moroccan rugs and terra-cotta dinnerware sets.
All of this, before customers even catch a whiff of its real estate business on the walls at the back of the office: framed portraits of houses that resemble something closer to art décor than it does marketing.
Upstate Down — a hybrid interior design studio, furnishings store and real estate company — was founded in 2021 by the husband-and-wife and real-estate-agent duo, Jon and Delyse Berry. Bringing every aspect of a home’s life cycle together isn’t entirely novel, they acknowledged. Nor is their leaning into a lifestyle brand. Yet it’s precisely this all-in-one model that has helped Upstate Down stand out among traditional brokerages and algorithm-driven platforms.
“We didn’t just want to be forward-facing as a real estate office,” said Mrs. Berry, Upstate Down’s chief executive. “A home is not just a transaction; it’s where you live, it’s where you love, it’s where you enjoy, and that’s what I felt was missing at other firms.”
Rachel Hyman-Rouse, principal broker and founder of Rouse + Co Real Estate, said it was encouraging to see the creative risks pay off for another boutique brokerage in Rhinebeck. “They’re morphing themselves into a new-age kind of business,” Ms. Hyman-Rouse said of Upstate Down. “I don’t know anybody else who does that, and it’s a unique approach.”
