IS KIPS BAY CANCELLED THIS YEAR? NO, JUST RESCHEDULED

With just six weeks till the doors open, Kips Bay has been rescheduled. The Showhouse raises around $1 million each year for the club, and also showcases a multi million dollar residence that is on the market. It is the ultimate open house. Well, it seems real estate sales in the upper echelons are looking up. Last week, the townhouse on 26 West 76th Street sold for $19.5 million, and the buyer wants to close right away. So on March 19, The Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club Inc. announced that its 38th Annual Decorator Show House, which had been scheduled to open on Friday, April 30, has been postponed and will be rescheduled when a new venue is located. We will have to eagerly await the announcement of a new date and a new home!

Here is the press release:

Daniel Quintero, executive director of Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, said, “We are very grateful to all of the designers, architects, sponsors and many others who already have put a lot of work into this year’s event. The design community is hugely important to Kips Bay and we value everyone’s continued support. We hope to have an alternative fundraiser this spring, and we are looking at a possible date this fall for the 2010 Show House.” Designer Celerie Kemble added, “The Show House must go on, and it will. The funds raised are vitally important to the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club’s important work for children, and we in the design community are ready to rally and scramble in any way we can to help our friends at Kips.”

For the annual show house, which raises approximately $1 million annually for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, two dozen top interior designers decorate every room, closet and hallway before the house opens to the public. Proceeds from the event benefit the Boys & Girls Club's essential after-school and enrichment programs for more than 13,000 young people at 10 locations in the Bronx. The event is the foremost showcase of interior design talent and trends in America, and receives as many as 20,000 visitors during its four-week run. It has raised more than $16 million since its inception in 1973.

A revised schedule, likely for early fall 2010, will be announced shortly.