When it comes to dream homes, some folks have vision boards. Actor and Saturday Night Live star Chloe Fineman had a television commercial. “It all started two years ago,” says Fineman, explaining how she landed her ideal West Village, New York, apartment while filming a video for a retail brand. “It was supposed to be shot at my apartment on the Upper West Side. And then [they were] like, ‘Oh, your space isn’t big enough to shoot this video.’ So they rented one in the West Village, and furnished it [into] what was a much better version of my own home. I was like, Oh, this is the goal.’”
The talent thought, Can I just live here? But that apartment was not available. “I stood on the steps, and [decided], I am going to live here one day.” And then a month later, a clone of the apartment right next door was listed on StreetEasy. “It was very witchy,” says Fineman. “I wrote a long love letter to my [now] landlord and explained that my dad used to live on the same street. That I used to walk along here when I was a college student. I think I even flubbed that I was conceived on that street, which was not true—whatever it takes!”
It worked. The landlord, who was a fan of SNL (Fineman has been on the show since 2019), was wooed. “We hit it off. She liked my dog. And then a month later, I moved in,” recalls Fineman, who was besotted with the building’s old-world charm and architecture. “I didn’t take a ton from my Upper West Side apartment,” says Fineman. “Honestly, when you start SNL, you’re so worried about being fired, that I hadn’t really bought a ton of furniture. I was modest until I was sure I was staying in New York. Then I moved down here, and I was like, Okay, let’s put our hands together and work.”
Fineman first had to draft her very own personal design team. “My sister Emma Fineman is a brilliant painter—and I have several pieces of her art in my house—but she also has insane taste, and so I pretty…
