Q. Why did you decide to expand into development?

A. It took 10 years to get there. I had a great firm going, but it was very difficult to make any money in that field, and I was not willing to be a starving artist for my whole life. I threw the whole thing up in the air and thought of other things I might do that would have a chance of making some money — one of which was real estate development, which I knew nothing about. I didn’t know if it was a good time to do it; I didn’t know what a pro forma was; I didn’t know if I could raise the money.

This was in ’93-’94, and it was the perfect time to do it. It was the end of a terrible slide in real estate and the beginning of a 14-year run. So all in one day I decided to leave architecture, ask my girlfriend to marry me and quit therapy.

Q. How did you first raise the money?

A. I made a list of 100 people I thought I could raise money from. Well, first I found an old building on Perry Street in the West Village, a 22,000-foot warehouse that had been vacant for five years. And I started going down the list, and I got to the fourth person, which was Russ Bernard, an old friend who was running a big real estate fund. He said: “Forget about your stepfather and the banks. We’re going to do the whole thing. You’re going to pay us a certain rate of return, and if there’s anything left we’ll split it.” They made 75 percent return; I made $1 million.

It was my first development, and I was also the architect for it. So as it turned out I was still able to be an architect. From there we bought a piece of land for 495 West Street facing the river.