Izak Senbahar is an entrepreneur, hotelier, and

real estate developer Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...

. He is president of Alexico Group LLC, which is involved in luxury residential and hotel development. According to ''The Real Deal'' magazine, the combined value of the company’s projects in 2014 was approximately $2 billion.

Early life and education

Born to a Jewish family, he is the son of Fani and Sabatay Senbahar. Senbahar graduated from Lycée Saint Michel in Istanbul. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. and an MBA degree in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business.

Career

Before entering

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

, Senbahar worked as a

precious metals Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. ...

trader at the New York City offices of Groupe Sucre et Denrées (SUCDEN), a French commodities broker. In the mid-1980s, he joined Kiska, a Turkish construction firm, to help the company establish itself in the New York real estate market. With Kiska, Senbahar oversaw the development of various properties including 353

Central Park West Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...

, a 19-story luxury condominium building. Subsequently, he partnered with Steven Elghanayan to develop the Elektra, a 32-story condominium in New York City’s

Gramercy Park Gramercy ParkSometimes misspelled as Grammercy () is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park and the surrounding neighborhood that is referred to also as Gramercy, in the New York City borough of Manhattan in New York, United States. T ...

neighborhood; the building, completed in 1992, was later sold to

Beth Israel Medical Center Mount Sinai Beth Israel is a 799-bed teaching hospital in Manhattan. It is part of the Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit health system formed in September 2013 by the merger of Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center, and ...

(now

Mount Sinai Beth Israel Mount Sinai Beth Israel is a 799-bed teaching hospital in Manhattan. It is part of the Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit health system formed in September 2013 by the merger of Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center, and a ...

). In 1993, Senbahar formed Alexico Group and joint ventured with Simon Elias to develop a number of projects.

Selected projects

* The Grand Beekman, 2003. This 89-unit luxury condominium at 400 East 51st Street was designed by Costas Kondylis & Partners. * 165 Charles Street, 2004. Designed by

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

–winning architect

Richard Meier Richard Meier (born October 12, 1934) is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings ...

, the 16-story glass tower in Manhattan’s

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...

neighborhood won the Housing Design Award from the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

New York chapter. * The Laurel, 2008. At 400 East 67th Street, this 129-unit condominium was designed by Costas Kondylis & Partners with interiors by Brian Callahan. * The Mark. Originally built in 1927, this Art Deco building at 25 East 77th Street houses a mix of hotel rooms/suites and cooperative apartments, a

Frédéric Fekkai Frédéric Fekkai (born 1958) is a French celebrity hairstylist and entrepreneur in the beauty industry. Early life Fekkai was born and raised in Aix-en-Provence, France. In 1979 at the age of 21, Fekkai moved to New York to start his career. Ca ...

salon, a

Jean-Georges Jean-Georges is a two-Michelin-star restaurant at 1 Central Park West (between West 60th Street and West 61st Street), on the lobby level of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, named after ...

restaurant, and a

John Lobb Bootmaker John Lobb Bootmaker is a company that manufactures and retails a luxury brand of shoes and boots, mainly for men but also for women. Leather goods such as wallets and belts are also available. Founded by John Lobb (1829–95), John Lobb Bootmak ...

kiosk. Its reimagined interiors are by

Jacques Grange Jacques Grange, born in 1944, is a French interior designer. Biography After completing his training at the École Boulle and the École Camondo, Grange made a career as a decorator in France and abroad from the 1970s. His main customers includ ...

, known for his commissions for Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and

Princess Caroline of Monaco Princess Caroline of Monaco (Caroline Louise Marguerite; born 23 January 1957) is, by her marriage to Prince Ernst August, the Princess of Hanover. As the eldest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and Grace Kelly, she is the elder sister ...

. Many other designers and artists—including Eric Schmitt,

Mattia Bonetti Mattia Bonetti (born 1952) is a Paris-based artist and designer. Bonetti was born in Lugano, Switzerland, and studied textile design at the Centro Scolastico per l’Industria Artistica. Bonetti moved from Switzerland to Paris, where he now lives a ...

, Ron Arad, Guy de Rougement,

Karl Lagerfeld Karl Otto Lagerfeld (; 10 September 1933 – 19 February 2019) was a German fashion designer, creative director, artist and photographer. He was known as the creative director of the French fashion house Chanel, a position held from 1983 ...

, Todd Eberle, Patrice Dangel, Howard Spivak,

Vladimir Kagan Vladimir Kagan (August 29, 1927 – April 7, 2016) was an American furniture designer. He was inducted in the Interior Designer Hall of Fame in 2009, 62 years after he started designing and producing furniture. His Midcentury modern furniture wi ...

Piero Lissoni Piero Lissoni (born July 23, 1956, in Seregno) is an Italian people, Italian architect and designer, known for his contemporary furniture design. In 1986, Lissoni and Nicoletta Canesi founded the interdisciplinary studio Lissoni & Partners in Mi ...

, and Paul Mathieu—contributed to the project. * In 2017 Bilanz magazine ranked The Mark Hotel as the Best City Hotel in the World. In 2020 Travel + Leisure Magazine The World’s Best Awards ranked The Mark Hotel; #1 Hotel in New York City and #1 City Hotel in The Continental U.S. * 56 Leonard, completed in 2017. Designed by the Swiss architecture firm

Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

, this 60-story condominium tower stands 821 feet high and is the tallest building in Manhattan’s

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

neighborhood. * 56 Leonard was awarded the 2017 Engineering Excellence National Recognition Award by ACEC and the 2017 Best Projects Winner in the Residential/Hospitality Category by Engineering News-Record. In 2019, 56 Leonard was named one of New York City’s 10 Most Important Buildings of the past decade by Curbed New York, a publication for American real estate and urban design.

Cultural Depictions

Film and Television Senbahar was featured in Season 1, Episode 1 of How Did They Build That?: Cantilevers & Lifts by the Smithsonian Channel. The show is centered on his 56 Leonard building in Tribeca, New York City. https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/details/series/how-did-they-build-that/season-1

Personal life

He is married to Sarah Genske; they have two children, Alexi and Oliver. In an interview with ''The Real Deal'' magazine, Senbahar said that he enjoys “drumming, percussion and bongos.”Katherine Clarke
“Izak Senbahar,”
''The Real Deal.'' Retrieved November 16, 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Senbahar, Izak Living people 1959 births American real estate businesspeople American people of Turkish-Jewish descent Businesspeople from New York City Hoteliers New York University Stern School of Business alumni Catholic University of America alumni Businesspeople from Istanbul Turkish Jews Turkish emigrants to the United States