Some forty years ago, Ann Ballentine, a real-estate agent with an eccentric sense of style and a knack for fostering community, bought a building in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I was first standing over here when I said, ‘I love this,’ ” she says, gesturing to a particular spot in her apartment, a space filled with stained glass and potted plants and jewel-tone rugs. In the years that followed, she rented out the units in the building to artists of all stripes. Inside the Candy Factory, as the building is still called, painters, sculptors, musicians, industrial designers, and filmmakers work next door to one another, connected by creative fellowship and personal ties. The ecosystem of the residence has yielded all sorts of collaborations, including a romantic partnership and an organ donation. What’s even more remarkable, to anyone who has searched for studio space—or rental stability of any kind in New York City—is that these artists have been able to stay there for so long. Some have been in their studios for decades. That stability is a luxury that verges on the miraculous, and it’s the result of Ballentine’s ethos as the building’s owner; she declined to sell it to developers for a sizable profit, or to gouge her artist tenants by spiking rents. “The whole building is like her art work,” says one tenant. Ballentine is technically the owner, but “landlady” doesn’t seem like the right moniker, another artist notes. Maybe “fairy godmother,” or “benevolent mayor.”
