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UOVO ART
Steven Guttman founded UOVO Art in 2012 after exiting the self-storage business he built with his father.
UOVO ART
Steven Guttman founded UOVO Art in 2012 after exiting the self-storage business he built with his father. The original venture, Storage Deluxe, was sold in multiple transactions, netting Guttman a fortune large enough to make the Forbes 400. Rather than re-entering generic self-storage, he targeted the high-net-worth segment's specific problem: maintaining legally defensible tax status for art collections through bonded warehousing and freeport-adjacent storage. UOVO's facilities in New York, Delaware, and Florida operate as designated foreign-trade zones or bonded storage areas, a structure that allows state sales-and-use tax to be deferred indefinitely on collectible assets. The firm is privately held by the Guttman family; no external capital rounds have been announced. The firm combines institutional-grade storage with a suite of services that includes transportation, installation, framing, and collection management software. UOVO's strategy is fundamentally real estate arbitrage — acquiring or long-term-leasing specialized climate-controlled buildings in high-barrier markets near collector hubs — married to a logistics operation that functions as an outsourced registrar for family offices. Confirmed locations include a 280,000-square-foot flagship in Long Island City, a facility in Delaware near key art freeports, and a South Florida outpost in Pompano Beach serving the Miami collecting corridor. In 2023 the firm acquired Assets Ltd., a London-based fine art shipping and logistics company, marking its first international expansion (per Artnet News, July 2023). UOVO employs at least 80 professionals across its locations, though headcount swells with freelance art handlers for project work. The firm's physical footprint exceeds 500,000 square feet of temperature-and-humidity-controlled space. UOVO acquired a $68 million stake in the Woolworth Building in 2014, converting a portion into secure art storage. In May 2025 UOVO opened a Brooklyn Navy Yard location, adding 100,000 square feet of storage capacity to meet demand from New York-based family offices routing collections through Delaware for tax optimization (per the firm, May 2025). UOVO is functionally a single-family operating company that behaves like a real-asset-heavy family office. Its competitive advantage is a balance sheet large enough to acquire trophy properties — like the Woolworth Building stake — and retrofit them for a narrow, capital-intensive use that institutional logistics firms find too relationship-dependent. The Guttman family's ongoing ownership means UOVO can sign 10-to-20-year storage contracts that mirror the illiquidity of the art inside, a term structure few PE-backed competitors can match.
General information
Firm type
Single Family Office
Year founded
2012
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Additional offices
Delaware · Pompano Beach, FL · Long Island City, NY
Principals
Steven Guttman
Founder and Chairman
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at UOVO?
Steven Guttman controls UOVO as a privately held family company; there is no external investment committee. Strategic decisions — including real estate acquisitions and international expansion — are made by Guttman as founder and chairman. Day-to-day operations are overseen by a professional management team including a CEO, though the firm does not publicly disclose its full C-suite structure.
How does UOVO source proprietary deal flow?
UOVO's pipeline originates from its position as a physical custodian for major collections. The firm's client relationships — built over multi-decade storage contracts — provide visibility into when families are consigning, deaccessioning, or relocating assets. Guttman's own network from the Storage Deluxe exit and Forbes 400 peer group generates additional sourcing. In 2023, UOVO acquired London-based Assets Ltd. to access UK and European collector relationships (per Artnet News, July 2023).
Is UOVO structured as a single family office or does it operate more like a logistics company?
UOVO is a single-family operating company, not a traditional family office with an investment mandate. It is a fully owned Guttman family vehicle structured as a for-profit art logistics and storage firm. The architecture — a family balance sheet buying real assets to serve other wealthy families — blurs the line between operating business and family office, but there is no separate investment entity allocating into third-party funds or direct deals.
Does UOVO participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
UOVO does not make external fund commitments or behave as an institutional allocator. Capital deployment is exclusively directed toward real estate acquisition and retrofitting for storage operations. The 2014 Woolworth Building stake and the 2025 Brooklyn Navy Yard expansion are representative of the firm's direct real-asset focus. There is no public evidence of venture, private equity, or hedge fund investments.
What investment stages does UOVO typically target?
UOVO does not target investment stages in the traditional sense. Its corporate development follows the art logistics market: early-stage entry via facility acquisition, mid-stage service expansion (fine art shipping, collection software), and late-stage geographic adjacency (UK expansion via Assets Ltd. acquisition in 2023). The firm's 'stage' equivalent is facility square footage under management in bonded warehouse zones.
Which sectors does UOVO explicitly avoid?
UOVO avoids any sector outside fine art logistics and associated real estate. The firm does not invest in operating art market businesses — galleries, auction houses, or advisory firms. It also stays away from crypto-art custody and NFT-related infrastructure, focusing exclusively on physical object storage under traditional bonded warehouse regulations.
How is UOVO related to Storage Deluxe and what does that imply for its capital base?
Steven Guttman built Storage Deluxe with his father, ultimately selling the self-storage portfolio in deals that generated over $3 billion in proceeds, earning him a Forbes 400 spot. UOVO is entirely separate from Storage Deluxe as a legal entity but is capitalized by Guttman family wealth derived from that exit. The Storage Deluxe playbook — acquiring real estate in high-barrier markets, optimizing operations, and holding long-term — directly informs UOVO's strategy in art storage.
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