Theater actors Kate Baldwin (starring in Broadway’s “Finian’s Rainbow”) and Graham Rowat (on the road in “Is He Dead?”) love to tease their out-of-town friends about New York real estate.
“They come to the city,” Baldwin says, “and we say, ‘This is our wonderful, spacious apartment.’ They look around, and say, ‘Really?’ Then we tell them: ‘You just don’t know what New York apartments are like.’ ”
The couple’s apartment, in a 1950s building on Riverside Drive, is about as New York as it gets. The 750-square-foot one-bedroom co-op has a living/dining room, an office (lined with posters from their various shows) and views of Riverside Park and the Hudson River.
“I’d been looking for a place on the Upper West Side for a year,” Baldwin, 32, says. “Then a real estate agent told me about this place. This was a sponsor unit. The sponsor unit idea is great for actors because there is no board approval.”
The apartment, which Baldwin bought in 2003, had been completely restored. All she had to do was hire a friend, a dresser for Broadway shows, to come by and paint. “I wanted the living room to be sort of buttery,” she says, “and I wanted red in the office and green in the bedroom.”
Then Baldwin started decorating. “The dining room table and chairs were my first purchase,” she says. “I wanted to have dinner parties and people around the table.” And even though the kitchen is small — “only one butt can fit in there at a time,” Baldwin says — she loves to cook.
When Baldwin found the apartment, she had been dating Rowat, a Canadian who lived in a Hell’s Kitchen sublet. “If I’d never met Kate, I’d probably still be living there,” he says.
But Rowat, 35, adds that, since their wedding in 2005, he’s become a full partner in the co-op, which they now own together.
“He got his dual citizenship and a place to live,” Baldwin jokes.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to be in such a beautiful home,” Rowat says. “I do not have the taste. If she wants me to mount something on the wall, I’ll do that. But she has the taste.”
Baldwin also has plenty of talent. In addition to starring in a hit Broadway show, her first CD, “Let’s See What Happens (Songs of Lane & Harburg),” was just released. “Burton Lane and Yip Harburg are the authors of ‘Finian’s Rainbow,’” Baldwin explains, “and the reasons for doing the album were sparked in my mind by doing the show. The score is just so beautiful.”
After working for 12 years, including stints on Broadway in “The Full Monty,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Wonderful Town,” Baldwin is finally entering, as she puts it, “leading lady land.” And she’s ready for the spotlight: “I’ve worked a lot. I’m more prepared to just have fun and enjoy it.”
Kate Baldwin &Graham Rowat’s
FAVORITE THINGS
● A Gaston figurine that reminds Graham of working in “Beauty and the Beast” (“If it wasn’t for that show, I wouldn’t have come to the States and I’d never have met Kate,” he says.)
● Costume sketches from Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” which the couple starred in together
● A jade horse’s head from China
● A painting of the horizon with trees in fall colors
● The dining room table and chairs