David Forbes had never lived in such a luxurious setting. His apartment building in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens offers a bounty of amenities, including a fitness center, rooftop deck, karaoke lounge and mint-condition pool table.<\/p>\n
Still, Mr. Forbes, 84, can\u2019t beat back the discomfort. \u201cI can\u2019t get completely settled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His studio apartment, which is half a mile from where he used to live in the neighborhood, is small but the issues go beyond a lack of space.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody gets to know anyone,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, we\u2019re very friendly over there on Lefferts Avenue with all the neighbors \u2014 Black, whites, Hispanics, up and down the block. It\u2019s a great block.\u201d<\/p>\n
His old block is where Mr. Forbes lived in high school when his family moved to New York from Tupelo, Miss. And it\u2019s where he returned in 2015, after his sister, Rena St. Lawrence, was told she had dementia. It was the kind of block where neighbors help move cars for street cleaning and pass the evenings on stoops.<\/p>\n
Mr. Forbes helped her run the household, chipping in with maintenance and finances. The house had been in Mr. Forbes\u2019s family since the 1950s, and his sister was raising several foster children when he returned. But it didn\u2019t take too long before he discovered there had been changes to the deed for the property.<\/p>\n
Private investors had visited the house, introduced themselves to Ms. St. Lawrence and offered her financial compensation in exchange for an ownership stake in the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister had dementia and people were taking advantage of her,\u201d Mr. Forbes said. \u201cThey bought into the house, paid her and added their name to the deed in the form of a corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once he discovered this transaction, Mr. Forbes, whose name was also on the deed, began an eight-year effort in civil court to win back full ownership of the property. As he saw it, his sister had entered an agreement that she did not understand because of her deteriorating mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister would never have let that happen if she was in her right mind,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was a good businesswoman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Mr. Forbes\u2019s efforts in civil court were unsuccessful. \u201cThe case was too complicated for free legal aid \u2014 and every private lawyer I talked to wanted 10 grand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. St. Lawrence died in 2024 at age 100. Mr. Forbes, who is retired from a career delivering Wonder Bread products, lives on a fixed income from Social Security. He knew he wouldn\u2019t be able make the payment that would soon be due for a reverse mortgage that his sister had taken out on the home in a transaction separate from the one involving the investors.<\/p>\n
So, in 2025, he turned to Lefferts Avenue for help, knocking on the door of his next-door neighbor, Alison Novak. His connection with Ms. Novak, a real estate developer, went back to 2017 when her family moved to the block.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had gotten to know Alison and her family,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has two young girls and a husband, all very friendly. She and I were comfortable with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Novak got to know Mr. Forbes\u2019s cream-colored Escalade. \u201cHe would bring out a little stool and I would see his sister with her church hat on, and he\u2019d help her into the car, which was a very sweet sort of thing to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Mr. Forbes, Ms. Novak understood that the wealth of Lefferts Avenue extended well beyond property values. \u201cIt is a really, really lovely block,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Mr. Forbes knew that Ms. Novak worked in real estate and wanted her advice about the house. At first, Ms. Novak tried to negotiate a settlement for Mr. Forbes to buy back the ownership stake Ms. St. Lawrence had sold.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I had to put the house up for sale,\u201d Mr. Forbes said.<\/p>\n
But when it hit the market in 2025, it did not find a buyer. \u201cThe price that the other investors wanted to list it for was just too high,\u201d Ms. Novak said.<\/p>\n
So, she made a proposal to Mr. Forbes. \u201cI said, \u2018What if I make an offer, is that OK with you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just that she had secretly always dreamed of joining the two adjacent structures, creating more room for her growing family and for grandparents to visit, but she also wanted to keep Mr. Forbes in the house \u2014 and on Lefferts Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know Mr. Forbes,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of this whole experience has been feeling like there\u2019s something important there for us to protect. That\u2019s very motivating.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two of them began discussing the possibility of Ms. Novak buying the property and renovating it, complete with a rental unit that Mr. Forbes could live in with a lifetime lease.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe asked about fixing up a place for me to come back to,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s very considerate of her. So, I said, \u2018Yes, go ahead, try it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Novak bought the property for $1.65 million at the beginning of 2026, and Mr. Forbes split the proceeds with the corporation that had been added to the deed. Before renovations began, she helped him secure a yearlong lease for his current apartment.<\/p>\n
He moved into the studio apartment on March 1 and recently qualified for a New York City rental assistance program that will soon pay 90 percent of his $3,000 monthly rent. Ms. Novak plans to complete the renovations by early 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told Mr. Forbes, when I\u2019m finished, you can decide if you want to move back in,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really so important to me that he has \u2014 and feels \u2014 true agency. It\u2019s important that he\u2019s deciding what he wants, especially because his sister went through a lot of manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Mr. Forbes\u2019s studio is only about a half mile from the old Lefferts Avenue block, the distance is still difficult. He mostly uses a walker to get around and has been back to visit only a few times.<\/p>\n
He misses being on the block, in the familiar house. But he also has two grown sons, one in New Jersey, the other in South Carolina, who have both offered to let him live with their families.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t sure what he\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n
Some days, he said, he gets worn out just thinking about when the renovations are complete. \u201cAt my age, I don\u2019t want to move.\u201d<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t comfortable in his current building, but there is a temptation to avoid the hassle of boxing up his life again. \u201cI turn 85 at the end of this year. I\u2019m supposed to be done with moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pull of Lefferts Avenue, though, just might just be the thing to bring him back. \u201cA big part of me wants it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ms. Novak is hoping he\u2019ll move back \u2014 and not just because she and her family would like to have their friendly neighbor back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think people should have the opportunity to grow old in their homes,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can make a safe place for him to live that\u2019s stable. It\u2019s really important to us that he can live there for as long as he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Forbes had never lived in such a luxurious setting. His apartment building in the Brooklyn neighborhood of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,56,63,41260,578],"class_list":["post-358481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-prospect-lefferts-gardens-brooklyn","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}