Hartford Courant (Sunday)

Brooklyn Heights the new hot spot for celebs

Neighborho­od sees growth with more businesses opening

- By Steven Kurutz

On a recent afternoon, the line stretched down the block from L’Appartemen­t 4F, a French bakery that began as an Instagram account during the pandemic and opened in a storefront in Brooklyn Heights in June. It has been mobbed ever since.

Down Montague Street, a stylish crowd was having brunch at Felice, a new Italian restaurant run by the group behind the fashion-world hangout Sant Ambroeus. Felice recently made the celebrityo­bsessed site DeuxMoi, when actress Tommy Dorfman was spotted there.

And a few blocks away, actor Paul Rudd was hanging out on his stoop with his family, having recently bought and renovated a brownstone in the neighborho­od.

In the past year or so, the stodgy and moneyed enclave of Brooklyn Heights, the old Volvo of New York neighborho­ods, has undergone a subtle yet significan­t shift.

The change is in the early stages: Senior discount Tuesday at Gristedes is still popping, and the closest thing to a home furnishing store is Mattress Firm. But the leafy neighborho­od, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge along New York Harbor, has destinatio­n food and shopping for the first time in ages. Its grand historic townhouses have become prized by the new superrich who are pushing out the merely well-to-do lawyers and bankers who have long made up the local gentry.

And celebritie­s are now everywhere. Amy Schumer made news in July when she paid over $12 million for the “Moonstruck” house, the five-bedroom, 5,600-square-foot townhouse built in 1829 on Cranberry Street where the Oscar-winning 1987 film was shot.

Matt Damon paid

$16.7 million in 2018 for a 6,000-square-foot penthouse apartment in the Standish Brooklyn, the Beaux-Arts style hotel turned celebrity-filled condo on Columbia Heights. His neighbors include John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. Three blocks away, Michelle Williams paid $10.8 million in 2020 for a 3,000-square-foot townhouse.

Celebrity sightings have become so commonplac­e — Jennifer Connelly walking her children to school; Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys on a weekend stroll; Adam Driver playing fetch at the dog park — that it’s small wonder the paparazzi have not staked out the promenade.

In another sign of the neighborho­od’s rising cultural cachet, Jenny Jackson, a vice president and executive editor at Knopf, has written a novel of manners set in Brooklyn Heights that follows an old-money family. “Pineapple

Street” is not due out until next year, but has been optioned for developmen­t as a TV series.

She, too, has had her share of celebrity run-ins. “The West Village is where you went if you wanted to see celebs in their natural habitat,” Jackson said. Now she runs into Russell at SoulCycle and Driver at the ice cream cart. “I’ve seen Matt Damon outside the pharmacy. He’s so conspicuou­s because he pulls his hat down to try not to be noticed.”

Ultimate real estate prize

The West Village analogy is not far off. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw was seen coming out of a Perry Street brownstone, the neighborho­od has been considered one of New York City’s most desirable for a certain breed of downtown celebrity who coveted a West Village townhouse as the ultimate real estate prize. Architectu­ral Digest once asked if West 11th Street was home to the city’s most “star-studded” block.

In a city where the ultrarich want not one, but two home offices and lots of outdoor space — desires that went into overdrive during the pandemic — Brooklyn Heights has emerged as a picturesqu­e alternativ­e for those who can afford to live anywhere.

“There are countless buyers right now who are shopping simultaneo­usly in the Village and Brooklyn Heights,” said Ravi Kantha, a partner at Leslie Garfield, a real estate agency that specialize­s in townhouses. “I tell people, ‘It’s like the West Village, uninterrup­ted,’ ” he added, referring to the blocks of well-preserved townhouses on tree-lined streets.

Many of the recent arrivals made their fortunes in the new economy and are attracted to the gorgeous architectu­re, proximity to Manhattan and elite private schools.

Joseph Lallouz, a cryptocurr­ency executive, paid $18.3 million in September ($3 million more than the previous list price) for a five-story brownstone with a carriage house, private garden and a rooftop with waterfront views.

“People who walk around the neighborho­od, very often the first comment is, ‘Wow, it’s so beautiful. It’s so quiet, it’s so peaceful,’ ” said Kantha. “For anyone who’s looking for an escape from the pressure, the noise, anything about the city that can be overwhelmi­ng, this is a pretty amazing thing to discover.”

Retail revival on Montague

But there are still many amenities that Brooklyn Heights lacks. Until recently, there were no scene-y bars or restaurant­s worthy of posting on Instagram. There are no gourmet stores to buy grass-fed beef or cheese from Hudson Valley purveyors. No boutique hotel with a lobby scene to take meetings. The closest thing to a social club is the Heights Casino, a timeworn squash and tennis club that feels imported from 1950s Greenwich, Connecticu­t.

Montague Street, the neighborho­od’s main commercial strip, is famously, perpetuall­y drab, a boulevard of chain stores like Starbucks and Key Food interspers­ed with mom-and-pop hardware stores, bodegas and diners, along with many empty storefront­s.

Ashley Coiffard, who opened L’Appartemen­t 4F with her husband, Gautier Coiffard, first visited Montague Street three years ago and remembered thinking that there was nowhere to eat except for a Subway.

“After we signed our lease, a lot of people were, like, ‘Brooklyn Heights — there’s not too much going on. Are you sure that was a good decision?’ ” she said.

But the bakery seems to have spurred a retail revival. Across the street, at No. 122 Montague, novelist Emma Straub is opening a new branch of her bookstore, Books Are Magic, a store so cute that it has more than 200,000 followers on Instagram.

Both businesses were brought to the neighborho­od by the Brooklyn Heights Associatio­n, a more than century-old civic group working with landlords, residents and business owners to enliven the local commerce. “The older generation might not love it, but I do think a really cool bar on Montague Street is the next thing we need to go after,” said Erika Belsey Worth, the associatio­n’s president.

She may have gotten her wish. In June, Sean Rembold, a former chef of the Williamsbu­rg mainstays Marlow & Sons and Diner, and his wife, fashion designer Caron Callahan, opened Ingas Bar, a chic neighborho­od restaurant at 66 Hicks St., a space formerly occupied by the neighborho­od stalwart

Jack the Horse Tavern.

Ingas is often packed with a crowd who look like they Ubered over from the cooler parts of Brooklyn. On a recent evening, Schumer was hanging out at the bar.

 ?? JONAH ROSENBERG/THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? Celebritie­s like Paul Rudd, Amy Schumer and Matt Damon call Brooklyn Heights home.
JONAH ROSENBERG/THE NEW YORK TIMES Celebritie­s like Paul Rudd, Amy Schumer and Matt Damon call Brooklyn Heights home.

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