full house productions: company history

Full House Productions was founded in 1981 by Phil Lee and Howard Kaufman in a small converted apartment on 49th Street in New York City. With credit cards, two Teac 1/4” tape decks, an inexpensive mixing console, the kitchen for a booth and an old bathtub for storing extra equipment, Full House Productions began its journey to becoming one of New York City’s leading recording studios.

[view a panorama of our rooftops]

The early days brought jobs that included commercial television and radio demos for major ad agencies like J. Walter Thompson, Grey Advertising, and Griffin Bacal, the ad agency of record for Hasbro Toys. These first few years became so busy that by 1984 it was time to look for larger digs. Lee soon found his new studio space at 150 Fifth Avenue where he’d spend the next 15 years—very busy and ingeniously growing his business.

His first merger came in 1988 when well-known video-dance director and producer/editor Jeff Bush joined Full House Productions as studio manager. Bush, with dancer/choreographer Celia Ipiotis, was the creator of “Eye on Dance” and met Lee when he became a sound consultant for the program. Together they quickly grew the studio. Mergers continued as a part of expansion at Full House Productions.

In the mid-90’s, Lee and Bush decided to add audio books to their studio services and so they pursued an opportunity to purchase the Sun Group from award winning recording artist, Arthur Custer. Lee spent two-years mentoring with Custer, while Bush maintained operations at the main studio. In 2000 they merged the two companies in a larger studio—their present day location at 123 West 18th Street.

In 2000 they also merged with A & J Recording in New York City. The client list now grew to include documentary filmmakers like Ken Burns and Ric Burns. Shortly afterwards, Agostino “Tino” Galluzzo joined the company as a managing partner.

Soon after setting up in their new studio, Lee and Bush decided to approach Fran Bowen, owner of Trackwise®, a well-known audio restoration studio to see if she’d be interested in partnering. Bowen quickly brought her expertise to the group which rounded out the studio services nicely.

In 2007, Full House Productions partnered with Beta Technologies a Lisbon based company to create content for Second Life™ — the latest virtual reality phenomenon. Under the direction of Jeff Bush the company has already secured projects with Xerox and Honeywell.

Despite the “creative” storage techniques and the “rustic” studio environment of its early days, Full House Productions has evolved into one of New York’s finest studios. Today they’re home to four divisions; Full House Studios, Full House Productions, Trackwise®, and Beta Technologies. They’ve certainly come a long way from retrieving headphones from a rusty bathtub in an apartment on 49th Street!