The New York Times knows skateboarding is cool. And what better way to show how hip a young couple can be than by profiling Jay Shapiro and Claire Bigbie at their wonderfully skatie pad in San Francisco’s trendy Noe Valley neighborhood. The profile is filled with lines like these:
After Ms. Bigbie graduated in 2001, the couple lived in London for a year. Ms. Bigbie — who had been collecting furniture since she was 14 (about the same time she started skating) and had designed a skateboard clothing line by 16 and graphics for the indie record company Tooth + Nail by 18 — worked at the British furniture design company Precious McBane. . . Mr. Shapiro became an assistant to Richie Hopson, a British photographer. . . .When he was offered a job as a team manager for Think Skateboards in San Francisco, they returned, and Ms. Bigbie became a stylist for the do-it-yourself magazine Ready Made.
And that fellow skateboarders is exactly how you end up with an envelope a&d designed $1 million house in SF. Notice our tone? That’s just us being jealous and petty.
[Link: New York Times and evelope a&d]
Nooo…a trust fund is how you end up with a million dollar house and a $500K remodel as a skate team manager (for Think no less, which might just pay the property tax on that house) and a designer.
Hell, good for them…I’m just saying…
Think is still around?
I live in SF and would kill for this house. Who gives a shit how people go their money; that design is rad and I’m jealous.
Dam Jake…you are 100% spot on with that one.,….TRUST. I am pretty sure neither of them has worked a day in there life. Believe me….
They’re bathroom is amazing!
you don’t go to R.I.S.D. for free. they say it’s a skater’s dream house? sounds like it’s a rich hipster’s dream to me… when I think of a dream house, getting the most for my money with a lot of land to build whatever skate stuff I want seems more up my alley. then again, I am not hip, cool or trendy….
damn.
wonder if they would kick you out of their driveway for skating?
I am jelous, it would be nice to be a trustafarian. I mean cmon, buy the pad for a cool mil, and throw another 500 at it, not on team manger, and whatever she does salary.
Ummm…. trust fund much??? Love the disconnect btw him being a TM and this house. What she does, or doesnt, is irrelevant.
That is an AMAZING pad. No doubt the renos alone (never mind actually buying a house however many years ago in SF) were an easy $500k plus.
Someday….
Now you know why I’m formerly of SF. They make me want to vomit. Poseur faux hipster types. Bleah.
C formerly of SF, come back. We need more of your kind here to balance things out.
Can each of you please also put your comments on the 7×7 version of this piece? I left one because I just couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t even address the trust fund / team manager business. I don’t know why I care, but this article got under my skin.
http://www.7×7.com/blogs/domain/sf-couples-home-skaters-dream
just because someone has good taste and money doesn’t mean that they don’t love skateboarding as much as you do.
since when was this dork the TM at Think?
this Shapiro guy is the biggest freeloader i’ve ever seen
There has been some very industrious background-checking in the comments at this site.
http://vegacura.blogspot.com/2009/04/living-dream.html#comments
The article got under a lot of people’s skin, I think partly because of that NY Timesy way of saying what the couple do for a living and then dropping casual references to cash outlays way out of sync with their careers, and pretending there’s no missing information. Because in NYT-land, it’s assumed that everyone has a trust fund.
I’ve been following this story since it ran and can’t help but laugh at some of the comments posted above. I’ve never met her and it has been years since I last saw Jay, but that dude is a good shit. He was then and I’m sure he still is now. Who gives a fuck about the house. Get over it.
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