New Team Combines Art and Real Estate

Chilton & Chadwick - Global Real Estate Concierge is unlike any real estate group you have ever met. They launched this past April and have quickly grown to be a force within Greenwich’s art, real estate and other markets as well.

“Our model is unique.” said its founder, Chadwick Ciocci. “We’re adept at combining a number of exclusive services that are of strong interest to our clientele.”

If that statement sounds bold, it’s for good reason.

Chilton (as it is known colloquially) offers services in real estate, art advising and acquisition, jewelry acquisition, private jet and yacht chartering and household staffing. If those services seem to fit together, it’s because they’re supposed to.

“Our clients have complicated lives. They own beautiful homes, travel a great deal and most have passions for collecting, be that art, wine or something else,” explained Ciocci. “We want to help service their entire lives, not just their real estate needs.”

That is no small task, but Ciocci seems to have built the team and network to deliver on his lofty ambitions.

“We’re a team within the Higgins Group,” explained Christine Finch Oleynick, Chilton’s executive vice president, “and we really take that to heart.  Whether it’s a client request, a marketing question, an event or whatever it might be, we really work together as a machine to make sure everything is executed efficiently and to our clients’ approval.”

To really get a feel for the team though you need to visit them at their offices on Sound Beach Avenue in Old Greenwich.

Most real estate offices can be described as old, tired, boring, drab – you name it, we’ve all seen it.

But Chilton’s is different. Very different.

“We designed it more as an art gallery,” explained Ciocci. “I can’t stand to look at plain walls, or generic pictures. It really feels good when you come in here, both for our clients, but for our team members too.”

Indeed, when you walk in to the reception room, guests are greeted by works from Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Marjorie Guyon – an emerging artist who, in some pieces, combines images of ancient Greek and Roman statuary with contemporary graffiti, marble dust and flare; and in others, Chinese language upon broken services with an added mix of graffiti as well.

They are stunning, not just for their imagery, but for the ideas of cultural inheritance and lost virtues that they explore as well.

“I was really drawn to Marjorie’s work immediately when I saw it,” said Ciocci. “I studied philosophy in college, so I really love the Greek and Roman basis of the paintings, but I also love contemporary art, so the combination of the two was just really perfect.”

So perfect in his eyes, in fact, that Ciocci commissioned a piece for himself.

“Not just one piece, too many,” he says jokingly. “Marjorie and I sat down and really wanted to figure out a project to do together, and so I commissioned her to do the entire Greek pantheon in her iconic style. It was really her idea, but I fell in love with it.”

The first piece in the series? Apollo, the god of - amongst other things – the sun and light, his torso executed primarily in yellow hues with grey and green undertones and small strikes of red graffiti.

“I love it,” said Ciocci, “Her work is divine.”

Apollo, Marjorie Guyon

But Chilton’s art offerings extend well beyond their office-gallery.

In fact, they are currently displaying works at the new Greenwich showroom of Anthony Lawrence Belfair, an upscale custom furniture and window treatment company whose roots in town extend back forty plus years. The firm works directly with interior designers, and the brands seem to be a natural fit.

There one can see and purchase works by Penny Putnam, a local artist who paints primarily in water colors, but with a great deal of collaging and convolution that water colors do not typically bring to mind.

“I was immediately struck by the complexity and beauty of Penny’s skill and work,” says Yanqi Ma, who was recently brought on to help with Chilton’s art business. “She understands color, form and collage in a way that I don’t think many artists do.”

Tangerine Martini, Penny Putnam

But it isn’t just Chilton’s art that catches your eye. Browse one of their brochures in the showroom and you are immediately transported back to real estate. Beautiful properties in Greenwich and Westport catch the eye, but a stunning chateau on Lake Geneva in Switzerland is mesmerizing, if not for its beauty, then at least its price: ninety-nine million Swiss francs.

“Global real estate concierge” suddenly seems very fitting.

The Swiss Chateau

For more information, contact Chadwick@ChiltonAndChadwick.com.