Brooklyn Heights Penthouse Purchase by Matt Damon Sets Borough Record
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In the spring of 2018 celebrity property gossip columns around the globe blossomed with unsubstantiated scuttlebutt Oscar-winning leading man Matt Damon was so fed up with Donald Trump’s presidential antics he planned to pack up and move his family to Australia. But, turns out, the “Jason Bourne” franchise star is instead ringing in the New Year with the record-setting purchase of a plush, multi-floor penthouse atop the Standish , a newly refurbished ultra-luxe apartment house in New York City’s historic Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. Rumors of Damon’s intent to purchase the penthouse have circulated for more than a year and property records now reveal a completed transaction with an eye-catching $16.745 million sale price. Details about the finishes and configuration of the triplex are slim but earlier reports and other online resources indicate it comprises 6,218-square-feet on the 11th and 12th floors plus the roof.
Designed by Frank S. Lowe and built in 1903 as an apartment hotel with a symmetrical brick, terra-cotta and limestone façade, the Standish is one of the tallest buildings in the immediate area and, hence, offers its deep-pocketed upper floor residents wide open views across the East River to the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline. Acquired by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the early 1980s, the building was sold in 2007 to a developer that converted the building to rentals before it was re-imagined as a 31-unit luxury condominium development by Westbrook Partners and DDG Partners with units first coming for sale in 2016.
Residents pay steep monthly common charges commensurate with some of the most exclusive buildings in Manhattan and are provided with a restored and redesigned lobby featuring gleaming porcelain and marble finishes, 24-hour doorman and concierge services, a fitness studio, a children’s playroom and a communal roof terrace with panoramic water and city views.
The Standish also carries a couple nuggets of pop cultural history: It was the name of the building where Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent lived and was used by late Brooklyn Heights resident Arthur Miller as the hotel name where Willie Loman has an affair in “Death of a Salesman”.
As noted in the New York Post and according to Street Easy , the recorded sale price is “the highest price paid for residential real estate in Brooklyn,” well above the borough’s previous record of $15.5 million shared by a 10,000-square-foot Cobble Hill townhouse sold in 2015 to acclaimed photographer Jay Maisel and an 8,000-square-foot Brooklyn Heights townhouse acquired in early 2018 by married actors Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany . The highest price paid for a condominium in Brooklyn had previously been set in 2017 when art dealer Lio Malca paid $15 million for a quirky triplex penthouse at the Clock Tower building in DUMBO where Anne Hathaway owned a loft-style unit she sold in 2014 for a bit more than $4.3 million .
Set to star with Christian Bale in the upcoming James Mangold-directed bio-drama “Ford v. Ferrari,” Damon used to maintain a waterfront estate along a celebrity lined road in Miami Beach, Fla., he and wife Luciana sold in 2014 for $15.375 million — it was once owned by Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees — and the Damons have long maintained a nearly 9,000-square-foot contemporary villa in a particularly posh pocket of Pacific Palisades, Calif., they bought in 2012 for $15 million.
exterior photo: via Street Easy
