Set Builder-Turned-Broker Doug Bowen Brings Brownstone Vibes to New Dev in Brooklyn

By David Hay Doug Bowen is in his element. We are standing on an unfinished, concrete walk bridge that leads into the high-ceiling, glass-windowed lobby of the work-in-progress boutique condominium at 144 Vanderbilt . Below us is the site of a future garden, a dense wall of nature to be enjoyed by those looking out from the spacious common work area being laid out on that floor. Doug Bowen and Zia O’Hara Now in its final months of construction, the eye-catching 144 Vanderbilt in Fort Green, Brooklyn is the type of new development that Bowen, a top broker at Elliman , specializes in. He and his business partner, Zia O’Hara, and their six colleagues—officially the Doug Bowen/Zia O’Hara Team at Douglas Elliman —have been on this project for over three years. As we walk inside, Bowen, an ebullient yet straightforward man, is bursting with information. (“That’s where the gym will be…. The garage is another story below….”) He makes sure I see the plain, concrete quarter-round structure out in the rear garden. With a discreet skylight and tiny window, it will serve as a yoga and meditation studio. Walking among the builders, carpenters and painters applying finishing touches to each of 144 Vanderbilt’s 26 apartments—priced from $1.95 million to $5.5 million—Bowen would be forgiven for wondering if he had somehow time-traveled decades back to his previous life as a set builder on more than 50 feature film and TV productions—including a certain Oscar-winning spectacle that required the construction of a full-scale replica of a certain “unsinkable” vessel. But the present moment is one he looks forward to most in the new dev journey: the selling stage. Although the building is due for completion in the Spring of 2025, one apartment has already sold. By the time we’ve finished talking that afternoon he’s received an offer on another. “They weren’t thinking of paying asking price,” he informs me, “but that was this morning.” 144 Vanderbilt The Bowen/O’Hara Team specializes in townhouses and new development. The townhouse is how Bowen got into real estate, when he purchased his own, then truly dilapidated, home on Clinton Avenue, around the corner from 144 Vanderbilt. “I got a bunch of buddies on board from the movie/TV business, and we did everything to make it great,” he says proudly. Although he’s moved on from living in that house, he still owns it. As the housing market in Brooklyn took off over the last decade, Bowen found himself representing numerous new residential projects. ‘What I like about a new dev is that the client is the developer,” he tells me. “You’re not selling a single home but, as in this instance, 26 quite different homes.” What really makes a difference for Bowen, however, is partnering with Douglas Elliman Development Marketing . “They do everything to set us up, from comprehensive in-house research and planning to design, marketing and sales—they’re the best in the business,” he says without equivocation and, I’d say, a slight sigh of relief. “That means all the pitch decks, renderings, marketing materials…we have them in hand. Really gives us a leg up.” While his wife, Geraldine Librandi, continues to act—she notably appeared in two seasons of The Sopranos as the wife of Phil Leotardo (whose demise may or may not have been the final “whack” of the series, depending on how you interpret the finale’s closing cut-to-black)—Bowen is no longer in show business. After listening to his account of the year he spent in a town south of Tijuana, where he was a construction foreman on the creation of a “100% to scale” replica of the ill-fated luxury liner that appeared in James Cameron’s Titanic , I asked Bowen how, if at all, that experience influences him as a broker. He doesn’t hesitate. On location In Popotla, Mexico, south of Tijuana... ...with the cinematic recreation of the Titanic. “Not many of us have the construction and design experience that I have approaching a property,” he says. “And I have a good sense of the sometimes long process it takes to achieve any goal. When a deal presents itself, subconsciously or not, I bring both those elements to it.” I suspect the experience also taught him that core competence does not come easily and that learning to be adaptable—finding a way out of the weeds—is indispensable when it comes to closing a deal. “You can’t be rigid,” Bowen says. “I like to think of the process as the art of sculpting a deal. Success comes at the end.” In the neighborhood On a busy corner in Fort Greene, 144 Vanderbilt is noticeable immediately from Myrtle Avenue. Clad in subtly pinkish, poured concrete panels, each with a scalloped finish, it resembles an artfully stacked set of blocks. Their placement is key to its design. In shifting the stacks of these cubes (that is, the apartments) on their lateral axis, yet placing them side by side, the architects create openings between them. In some instances, these separations become shared exterior walkways; in others, a small garden. Walking around outside between apartments, an element of surprise awaits: a quick encounter with a neighbor, a garden or terrace you mightn’t expect. It all adds to a sense of liveliness. The accomplished design team behind the project, all Brooklyn dwellers, was recently profiled in The New York Times . Sam Alison-Mayne and Sebastian Mendez’s firm, Tankhouse, developed it. Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, the husband-and-wife team behind the architecture firm SO-IL, did the design. They live two blocks away. Having crossed paths previously with the Tankhouse team on prior new dev projects, Bowen also sees Alison-Mayne and Mendez socially (and athletically) around the neighborhood. Indeed, this spirit of community abounds at 144 Vanderbilt. It’s all very well to say that the walkways between these new apartments are designed for increased sociability, but I get the sense that this neighborly stop-and-chat scenario has played out frequently among the building’s creative team. Now it’ll be there for others to share. Bowen likes community, be it a group of set builders or local developers and clients he’s known for many years, Closest to him are eight good friends from high school in his hometown of Scarsdale, NY. “We’ve known each other nearly fifty years,” he tells me. “That’s a special bond, and we’ve all recognized how lucky we are to have each other.” When we spoke, they were getting ready to embark on a reunion trip to Morocco—“all about food and wine,” he said, the anticipated joy evident in his ready smile. Although Bowen has many a client in Manhattan, I get the feeling he’s happiest and most productive on his home turf here in Brooklyn, where he knows everyone, and they know him. That connection—between brokers, buyers, sellers, developers and the properties between them all—doesn’t happen overnight. But it makes all the difference. Just ask Doug Bowen. David Hay is a well-known architectural writer and playwright. His stories have been featured in The New York Times , Dwell and New York .