Photo Credit: Sensi Casa
Sensi Casa’s mission is to assist clients with achieving a high-end aesthetic through detail-oriented curation that fills a space with luxurious furniture and accessories. Founder of Sensi Casa, Chiara Sensi-Contugi focuses on creating spaces that are not only aesthetically beautiful but work on a practical level as well. She relates to her clients on a personal level, easily adapting and refining her approach to meet specific client needs and deliver turnkey properties in record time.
Chiara recently sat down with Haute Design to explain Sensi Casa's visionary service.
Haute Design: Would you mind explaining what Sensi Casa's Pronto Stay Service is?
Chiara Sensi-Contugi: We introduced the Pronto Stay Service a couple of years ago, so this is one of the newest services we offer to clients. However, due to the COVID pandemic and the trends we began noticing as a direct consequence of the pandemic, the Pronto Stay Service became an extremely popular option for clients.
What started happening was, like many people across the country, clients started moving down to South Florida during the pandemic. However, once they would buy or rent properties, they realized they needed to get furniture for these properties. So they would reach out to us for our interior design services and come to find that, due to the lack of furniture across the globe, they would have to wait months to have the ideal piece they were looking for.
But because we also have our home staging service, we own an extensive catalogue of furniture, ourselves. So we realized we could offer these pieces to our clients to rent out during their stay in South Florida.
Clients loved the idea of basically leasing their furniture, rather than buying it. During that time, a lot of people did not know how long they would be in Miami. Would this a permanent decision? One year? Two years? With the Pronto Stay Service, clients do not have to invest in a fully furnished house or property, when they run the risk of having to move all over again in a matter of one or two years.
So we began offering this option to clients and we still offer the interior design of the house based on the clients' needs. With Pronto Stay, we still interview the client, just like any other interior design service we offer. We ask them about their way of life and their needs. Whatever they need, we provide them with the corresponding furniture. The only difference being that they rent the furniture rather than owning it.
Of course, this service has the limitation that the pieces we offer are based off our inventory. Clients looking to have one-of-a-kind pieces or eclectic designs throughout their home, might not want to choose the Pronto Stay Service. However, we have adapted the decisions we make when purchasing furniture to add to our inventory and we do offer a wide array of luxury pieces.
Photo Credit: Sensi Casa
HD: Have you noticed a particular clientele that is attracted to the Pronto Stay Service?
CS: It varies. A lot of the clients are coming from other states, rather than locals. Mostly, it's folks coming from New York or Los Angeles, who were not sure how long they were going to remain in South Florida after moving down, temporarily or otherwise.
Younger clients have also been very attracted to the Pronto Stay Service because they are looking for alternatives that would not demand too much of them, financially. Whether they are moving to a new apartment or just starting to live on their own for the first time, they tend to not have enough money to afford a fully-furnished home. But when you give them the option to rent furniture and create a monthly spending plan, it becomes a much more attainable alternative for that age group.
Photo Credit: Sensi Casa
HD: Are you aware of any service that comes close to offering what the Pronto Stay Service offers?
CS: I am pretty sure there were other companies renting furniture. But I am also confident that very few, if any companies, were actually designing a home around the client's needs in a furniture rental capacity.
Those who were offering furniture rentals were likely just offering whatever was available within their inventory but they were not actually executing any interior design. For better or for worse, we have seen a lot of competitors recently offer a very similar service to the Pronto Stay Service. Perhaps it's a good sign and it shows that we're doing something right when we see competitors imitating what we do and changing the name of the service.
HD: How do you see the Pronto Stay Service expanding in the future?
CS: Based on what we are seeing, it will be part of our service offering for a long time. I do not think it will be something that will be in high demand exclusively due to the current pandemic situation.
I would not go so far as to say that we discovered a niche market but I will say that we believe most people overlooked the option to rent the interior design service for one's home. By interior design, I do not want to come across as meaning just furniture. By interior design I mean, art, rugs, TVs, accessories, absolutely everything. We don't think it was on anyone's radar and it will be a service that is interesting for plenty of folks out there.
If you like to change your style frequently, this is an option that makes total sense. In the same way that someone would lease their car, we are offering the option to lease the interior of your home. Rather than purchasing furniture and then losing tons of money trying to sell it, because selling used furniture is simply not feasible, we hope to see clients take advantage of this option.
Photo Credit: Sensi Casa
HD: Are there any limitations on the duration of time clients can rent out their respective furniture or designs?
CS: Because we provide high-investment pieces and exclusively branded furniture, we do not offer any short-term rentals, so nothing less than six months. We do request a security deposit in case anything may happen to any of our pieces. There is not maximum allotted time for the rentals or leases.
Another interesting feature to this service is that we offer a buy-in option. If you happen to change your mind and realize that this temporary move to Miami becomes a permanent one, we offer a buy-in option, which would end up being discounted because the client would have been renting the pieces initially, so they would simply pay off the rest of what is due from each respective piece.
To learn more about Sensi Casa's Pronto Stay Service or any other service they offer, CLICK HERE.
Be sure to follow them on Instagram, @sensicasadesign.
