It took Lee Brian Schrager three decades to move into his dream home: a 1924-built, French country-style house in Coral Gables, Fla.
“I used to ride my bike past this home 30 years ago — I always loved this neighborhood and I always wanted this house,” says Schrager, the ringmaster behind the wildly successful Food Network & Cooking Channel Wine & Food Festivals (in South Beach and New York City).
So when a house in that French Country Village development went on the market in 2013, he and his partner — Ricardo Restrepo, a pediatric radiologist at Miami’s Nicklaus Children’s Hospital — pounced. Their offer didn’t win, but the seller tipped them off that some neighbors down the street might consider moving.
Schrager slipped a note under the strangers’ door; it was the very house he’d fallen in love with all those years ago. After convincing the owners to sell, Schrager, 56, and Restrepo, 46, finally got the keys to the 5,800-square-foot, four-bedroom château in the fall of 2014.
“It’s the perfect complement to everything in our lives,” the Francophile foodie tells Alexa.
It’s also the perfect embodiment of his make-it-happen bravura. Now on the boards of the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Food Bank for New York City, Schrager grew up in Massapequa, NY — the son of a salesman and a mother who worked in construction administration.
“All the kids in my neighborhood were clamming and playing baseball and I used to bake cakes and sell them to the neighbors,” he recalls. Always entrenched in food, Schrager went from manning a hot dog stand at the mall to (after the family moved to Fort Lauderdale when he was 15) scraping gum off the floors of a Winn-Dixie. Then it was studying at the Culinary Institute of America, and eventually serving as senior vice president of communications for Southern Glazer’s (the largest wine and spirits distributor in North America) and founding his food fests — which have raised more than $32 million for charity.
Restrepo, meanwhile, was born in Bogotá, Colombia, to doctor parents, and has four siblings, all of whom also became physicians. “He’s a radiologist: the ultimate photographer,” Schrager says admiringly of Restrepo. “He’s also my favorite photographer.”
That’s saying a lot, considering their 18th century-style villa is festooned with a who’s who of boldface artists. A Damien Hirst skull portrait grins down on the living room; nine red-framed Barbara Krugers form a graphic gallery in the sitting room; a Marilyn Monroe homage by David LaChapelle gazes over the den; black-and-white photos by Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton and Bruce Weber pop up around every corner.
The eye-catching works are set off by cheerful paint colors — a celestial blue on the ceiling of the living room and a Diana Vreeland-inspired Chinese red in the den — along with eclectic custom furnishings suggested by interior designer Michael Christiano (who also handled the décor of their NYC apartment, in the famed Ansonia on the Upper West Side).
“There’s no rhyme or reason,” Schrager says of the couple’s design philosophy. “It’s reflective of our life — casual and livable.”
They hired architect Nelson de Leon and builder 22 Core Construction to add a romantic, 64-foot-long pool and an impressive outdoor kitchen to the half-acre, three-lot property. “The pool steps go lengthwise, not widthwise,” Schrager notes, adding that it’s a replica of a friend’s pool in Tuscany. “It’s very dramatic. At nighttime, with the lighting, it’s incredible.”
And while it’s the favorite haven of devoted swimmer Restrepo, the couple’s pups — Charlie, an Old English sheepdog, and Stanley, a French briard — stay on dry land (“With their hair, they’d spend their whole life in the beauty parlor,” Schrager laughs).
As for his own preferred habitat, Schrager practically lives in the outdoor kitchen, hosting friends, family and a few of the hundreds of famous chefs listed in his phone (“Everyone from Alain Ducasse to Rachael Ray,” as he likes to say).
“If the weather’s halfway decent, we’re outdoors entertaining,” he says. “I always have something in the pizza oven. We’re grilling whole fish, brick-oven chicken, anything.”
“With a chef and a doctor,” he continues, “you’re always being well-fed and there’s always someone to take care of you — that’s our philosophy.”
Schrager unwinds from his hosting duties in the sunroom, which was created by partitioning a section of the living room (with a fleur-de-lis peekaboo wall) and installing a custom banquette. “It turned into my favorite room in the house,” he marvels.
The adjoining living room is outfitted with two Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs near the fireplace and a Mastercraft coffee table, along with a luminous cathedral image by Brazilian photographer Caio Reisewitz.
Wandering through the rest of the house, the couple’s adventurous spirit is evident, with winged Viking helmets from the Paris Opera adorning a transom, an iron fleur-de-lis chandelier (snagged on eBay) dangling above the hall, vibrant Moroccan carpets lining passageways, an elaborate armoire (rescued from a Paris market) anchoring the dining room, a zebra rug in the sitting room, and superhero figurines (won at an amfAR auction) staged playfully on a table in the den.
“We are collectors and never miss an auction or a flea market,” Schrager explains. Their favorite hunting grounds include Miami’s Lincoln Road flea market as well as French swap meets. “To me, there’s nothing like the markets in Paris — they’re fantastic.”
Which is not to say Schrager, who lived in Miami’s Design District for 22 years (“Before anyone else did and before [developer] Craig Robins even dreamed it would happen!”), doesn’t love returning home.
“You can leave for the summer, come back, and it’s different,” he says. “That’s the beauty of Miami — it’s a melting pot of cultures from around the world. If you look at the architecture and building going on here right now, it’s pretty amazing.”
The bon vivant (whose latest cookbook with Adeena Sussman, “America’s Best Breakfasts,” came out in April) is currently gearing up for Art Basel Miami Beach. “We never miss it,” he says. “But I don’t need the parties. I just like to see emerging photographers and new artists we’ve heard about.”
In fact, the only fête the couple has focused on lately is the Thanksgiving feast they just hosted at their new home — for 40 friends and family members.
“Holidays are great for us,” Schrager says. “That’s what a house is for.”
Grooming by Helen Anderson using Moroccanoil at Rona Represents