Growing up in the intense world of competitive dance, Jeanine Mason always looked up to Monica Santayana, a “badass” older team member. Monica saw Jeanine as a talented little sister, but the mutual admiration truly kicked in years later, when Jeanine won the fifth season of So You Think You Can Dance and started acting on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Rosewell, New Mexico. “I’m so proud of what she’s accomplished,” Monica says. “I’ve followed her success. It’s like she’s one of my children, but she’s not.”
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Monica has built an impressive creative career herself, cofounding interior design firm Moniomi with her husband, Ronald Alvarez. That’s why she was Jeanine’s first call upon purchasing an early 1900s Manhattan apartment. “I was like, ‘Moni, who in New York can help me with this?’ Because at the time I didn’t think she would want to do it from Miami,” Jeanine remembers. “But she was like, ‘Shut up, I’m doing it.’”
Collaborating on the renovation was a full-circle moment for the pair of friends, who used to fly together from Florida to participate in dance programs at Lincoln Center, just blocks away from Jeanine’s new home. “I have a real affinity for the Upper West Side,” she says. “And I love old things. My main mission was finding a space that we could take care of and shine up and do right by. I was hoping it would be a brownstone. I was hoping it would be prewar. I was hoping it would be near Central Park. And then this place came up.”
