Art & Real Estate, Bathroom Edition

The Wall Street Journal recently did a nice piece illustrating the continuing the connection between art and luxury real estate marketing. Here a Toronto developer who is trying to sell his Florida condo while he builds a house nearby, gets featured in a broader story.

Developers have been focusing on elevating kitchens and baths for a few decades now. It would appear that every imaginable fixture has become mundane. Now it requires art to make a bathroom truly distinctive:

“Victory Over Death,” a photogravure etching by Damien Hirst that depicts a diamond-encrusted skull, sets the tone for a powder room in the Hollywood, Fla., condo of Simon Mass. To match the $110,000 art piece, Mr. Mass opted for subdued bathroom walls with natural-stone tile, stainless-steel finishes and black-and-white accents. “We wanted to have the room low-lit so the art would be a lot more dramatic because it’s a skull,” says Mr. Mass, the 45-year-old founder of a real-estate investment firm, who is based in Toronto.

Show Off Your Art Collection—in the Bathroom  (WSJ)