Last May, No Peanuts! reported on the $3,600-a-month, Upper East Side apartment inhabited by Kelly Marek, a global account director for TransPerfect, the U.S.-based mega, mega-greedy, and mega-cheap-with-translators translation agency.
At the time we remarked that Marek had to be earning something in the neighborhood of $130K a year to be able to afford her partial-river-view corner apartment, which struck us as a paltry salary for a company that pays peanuts to translators but posted earnings of $471 million USD in 2014.
Well, as it turns out, we might have been right. Transperfect’s co-CEO Liz Elting isn’t wasting those millions on her account execs either.
The piece below from Hamptons Magazine (don’t you just love that there’s a Hamptons Magazine?), Elting and family ended up in a “cozy, seven-bedroom” home on 2.5 acres on Halsey Lane, complete with “Anthroplogie Louisa settees,” a basement wine-and-cheese-tasting table, and a complete complement of staircases.
We’ll leave it to you to imagine how much a modest little cottage like that probably goes for, or how much Elting and hubby Michael Burlant paid the Mabley Handler design team for all the cunning touches that made obscene, nouveau riche opulence “feel like home.”
[Okay, okay. We’re just going to tell you. You’ll never guess. No, you won’t. You couldn’t even imagine living in a house that cost that much. Just click already.]
The rich get richer … and translators get five cents a word. Come on, Liz and Mike. A penny more per word. For the little people?
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Bold Color Abounds in Mabley Handler-Designed Bridgehampton Home
BY STEPHANIE MURG
Summing up a home in a single word can be tricky, but Jennifer Mabley and Austin Handler donât hesitate. âColor,â say the husband-and-wife team almost simultaneously, when asked about the starting point for the grand yet breezy Bridgehampton retreat they designed for New Yorkers Liz Elting and Michael Burlant and their two sons, ages 12 and 10. âThe foundation of this house is the use of bold color, but in the right places,â says Mabley. âThe balance is challenging, and a lot of it is a matter of on-site nuances and making sure not to overdo it.â Their brilliant balancing act extends to layered materials, assured mixes of solids with geometric prints, and subtle yet soothing seaside references that combine to create a fresh, spirited take on Hamptons chic.
Elting and Burlant first called on Water Millâbased Mabley Handler when they were deliberating between two Hamptons properties. âEven before we retained the design firm, Jennifer was prepared, at the drop of a hat, to take a look at the different homes, give her opinions,â says Burlant, an executive director at the commercial real estate services firm of Cushman & Wakefield. âAnd we really took her thoughts to heart.â
The family ended up on Halsey Lane, with a newly constructed home set on 2.5 expansive acres. âWe love the centrality of it. Itâs near the ocean as well as the town on an extraordinary piece of land,â says Elting, the cofounder and co-CEO of TransPerfect, a language and business solutions company. âAnd itâs great for the kids,â adds Burlant. âThey were the biggest motivator for us to be here in the Hamptons and to pick the house that we did. Thereâs plenty of space to play outside and the house is sizable but doesnât feel too big. Itâs cozy and very homey.â
Making a seven-bedroom home with a grand approach and soaring entryway feel cozy is a design feat in itself, and one that Mabley and Handler accomplished in less than four months, armed with plenty of local finds (and finishing touches) from the likes of Mecox, Rumrunner Home, and English Country Antiques. After a carefully orchestrated single-day installation that ranged from backyard sod and furniture to kitchen appliances and linens, the family moved in last summer, just in time to spend the Fourth of July testing out the pool, tennis and basketball courts, and basement screening roomâas well as breaking in their cobalt-blue living room and cheerful open kitchen, which pops with tangerine accents.
âMany of our clients come to us because theyâve seen the soft, serene, relaxed interiors that we often do,â says Handler. âBut itâs always nice when you come across a client who wants a relaxing house but doesnât mind having a little bit of fun with color and pattern.â That willingness emerged gradually, through discussions that soon came to focus on color. âLiz has a lot of style,â explains Mabley. âAnd when we discovered her appreciation for color, we ran with that.â
The front door opens into a sea of white and blue, anchored by a large, bordered carpet and a pair ofAnthropologie Louisa settees upholstered with watercolor-inspired swirls of linen and cotton. The view through to the dining room reveals an airy space where the table for 14 takes center stage against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows flanked by a pair of large abstract canvases by New Yorkâ and Southampton-based artist Mark Humphrey.
Beyond the dining room is the showstopper of a living room, where cobalt and navy blue and white mix with silvery accents, bleached seashell flourishes, and jolts of geometric draperies and pillows. âI was never a blue person,â says Elting, who has long favored purple. âBut Austin and Jennifer converted me. I love the use of blue in the house.â The color scheme turns to subtle tones of grays and blues in the boysâ shared bedroom, with nautical accents.
As a complement to the azure tones throughout other parts of the home, a tangerine hue brightens up the kitchen. Elting became excited about incorporating orange after seeing the Mabley Handler portfolio, which includes the orange pool lounge they designed for the 2010 Hampton Designer Showhouse. âWe got to know orange very well from that project, and now itâs definitely one of our go-to colors,â says Mabley, who unified the expansive space with touches such as custom bar stools and Brooke cotton flatweave rugs from Madeline Weinrib. âItâs amazing how much the color does hold the space together,â the designer adds.
Directly off the kitchen is the den, a shelf-lined nook that mixes gray-washed paneling with soft purple tones, in ikat-patterned pillows and throws. âItâs one of my favorite rooms because itâs such a comfortable place for the family to gather and watch television or read,â says Burlant. An inviting sectional unfolds beneath an antique silver leaf Mainstay chandelier, a playfully angular wrought-iron design from Currey & Company.
Up the front stairs, and past the large abalone-inspired work by artist Dana Volkert, is the master bedroom, where more of Eltingâs preferred purple plays off of softy shimmering grasscloth wallcovering from Phillip Jeffries. Burlant describes the effect as equally âpeaceful, regal, and calming.â
The four upstairs guest rooms range from subtle grays to bold oranges and blues, including a light-flooded chamber at the far end of the house that mixes shades of blue, turquoise, and lime green, complete with bed linens and draperies in Trina Turkâs bewitching Blue Peacock zigzag ikat.
Now the family is focused on making the most of every moment they spend in Bridgehampton. âThis place gives us an opportunity to really enjoy friends and meet new people in the Hamptons,â says Burlant, who is eager to put the basementâs wine-and-cheese-tasting table to good use. âIt was a spectacular feeling to walk in the front door and see the final version of everyoneâs collaborative vision. We felt instantly at home.â
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“Let them eat cake,” she said.
Fuck you bloodsucking assholes! I hope you rot in hell! You are the cause of misery amongst honest and educated people. Fuck you and your lifestyle.
If anyone familiar with TP Word rates wants to know how-many-words-the-house-cost, just visit the link below…
130 Halsey Lane, Bridgehampton NY 11932
http://longisland.blockshopper.com/property/47-36-89-085-000-0002-018-003-0000/130_halsey
best regards,
a human translator
Easy calculation shows that the cost of their house equals to translating over 230 million words at TP’s current rate of US 0.05 per source word. That means, that I would have to translate for over 252 years non-stop (no days off, no holidays, no sick days) to translate so many words (providing I translate 2,500 words per day, which is more or less a typical number of words – in not too specialized subject – that can be translated in one day). WOW!!!!!
Well, as much as I am against such practices, I have to admit that it is entirely the fault of the translators themselves: why accept those low rates???
I completely agree with you, most translators are stupidly exploitable and have no business sense!
Reblogged this on Catålogo Premium de Intérpretes.
big house peanut brains
Reblogged this on International Language Services – Isabelle F. Brucher – Translation office specializing in Law, Finance and Marketing since 2004 and commented:
Why freelance translators had better find their own direct customers… ;-/
Some years ago I worked for them, however, when they thought they could take me for a ride by using the as a bank I sent by my to them and told them off.
They have never molested me again!
I started working with TransPerfect. They “accepted” my rate of 0.09 per word and began sending me projects. The POs were empty and PMs promised they’d pay 0.08 per word “based on final word count”. I accepted project after project based on stated budgets that ranged from $150 to $250. After a month of long work hours, and several all-nighters to meet tight deadlines the final purchase orders finally started arriving. To my horror my first month totaled LESS than 900 and it took me 4 months to get paid the peanuts they offered. They arbitrarily decided how many words to deduct, POs would go missing, they would “mistakenly” make errors on word counts and pay 399 words instead of the actual 939 words, wrong rates, PMs wouldn’t reply when I asked them to correct these errors, etc. So shady.