Steinway piano store relocates to Manhasset to target Long Island's wealthier customers

Steinway & Sons has gone smaller and higher-end with its relocated piano store on Long Island.

The iconic piano retailer and manufacturer opened its Steinway Piano Gallery Long Island on Dec. 8 in a Manhasset shopping center on the commercial stretch of Northern Boulevard referred to as the Miracle Mile.

With the approximately 18-mile move  to Nassau County from Melville, in Suffolk County, the piano chain is trying to attract more high-income customers.

“There are a number of reasons why we liked this location, but one very important reason is the relative proximity to a lot of other high-end brands, for example in the Americana Manhasset [shopping center] just a mile down the road,” Steinway spokesman Anthony Gilroy said.

The Manhasset piano store employs one full-time manager and one administrative assistant in a 2,754-square-foot space at 1488 Northern Blvd., said Dan J. Miceli, senior retail director for Steinway.

Founded in Manhattan by German piano maker Henry Engelhard Steinway in 1853, Steinway & Sons is a  brand known for expert craftsmanship.

The Astoria, Queens-based company has 17 company-owned stores in the United States, 11 in Europe and nine in Asia.

There are also about 100 stores run by independent dealers of Steinway pianos in the U.S., Gilroy said.

The only Steinway-owned store on Long Island, the Manhasset showroom, is a relocation of a 7,200-square-foot Melville store that was at 505 Walt Whitman Rd. (Route 110), a commercial route that is lined with various types of retail centers.

The Melville store, called Steinway Piano Gallery, closed in December 2022 after 15 years in the 9,700-square-foot, freestanding building. (Grace Music School, an independently operating business that occupied about 2,000 square feet in the building, also left.)

The relocation was part of Steinway’s strategy change in retail operations that started in 2015, Gilroy said.

“Our trend as a company is smaller showrooms in more upscale areas,” he said.

The average price of a new Steinway grand piano is about $100,000, but the company sells cheaper pianos under two brand names, Boston and Essex, which average $35,000 and $12,000, respectively. 

Used pianos sold in Steinway stores are typically about 30% to 40% cheaper than the new versions, Gilroy said.

The relocation of the Manhasset store aligns with Steinway’s efforts to be in more modern spaces with products that appeal to a wider range of customers, an initiative begun with the company’s 2015 launch of its Spirio, a high-resolution player piano controlled by an iPad, he said. 

The Spirio, which ranges in price from $113,700 to $200,000, is aimed at consumers who “like great music but they’re not necessarily skilled pianists,” Gilroy said.

About half of the pianos that Steinway is producing now are Spirios, he said.

The piano maker's Manhasset space, which was vacated by Country Curtains in 2019, is in a 12,385-square-foot shopping center that is in a prime location, a high-traffic area close to New York City, said Stuart Bayer, an agent in the Roslyn office of Douglas Elliman Real Estate who represents the Manhasset landlord.

Steinway initially planned to open its Manhasset store in the first quarter of this year but it was delayed because the renovations were more extensive than had been anticipated and there were some delays in getting the town of North Hempstead's building approvals, Gilroy said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.