Renae Adams, also known as the “Egg Girl” at the Standard Grill, is now hawking eggs from Balazs’ farm during brunch. (Alex Afervez)
Handsome hotelier Andre Balazs is standing in a field surrounded by chickens, looking very much the gentleman clad in tweed, cashmere and rubber wellies. He protectively clutches a bunny rabbit in the crook of his elbow as a cow looks on approvingly.
The creator of magical places for beautiful people, it’s hard to believe this is the same man behind the Standard hotel, where guests in glass-fronted rooms were spied doing the nasty high above the Meatpacking District. Dubbed the “Sex Hotel,” the hot spot and its owner have long been associated with louche urban glamour — a world far away from pitchforks and cowpies.
But in addition to ruling New York’s nightlife scene, Balazs is now a fully fledged organic farmer, with his 76-acre estate, Locusts-on-Hudson, now producing eggs and chicken to be served to Standard customers (who are presumably refueling after a bumpy night upstairs in the hotel’s Boom Boom Room).
“I don’t know if it’s the unlimited outdoor area they can run in or the organic feed they get, but I’ve never tasted chicken like this,” Balazs recently enthused to Bon Appetit, of the Freedom Ranger broilers trucked from Locusts-on-Hudson to the Standard Grill twice monthly.
Of course, Balazs doesn’t own just any old farm. Locusts-on-Hudson was once owned by porn king Bob Guccione, who made it his weekend home with his third wife, ballet dancer turned stripper Kathryn Keeton, who is buried on the estate. A two-hour drive north of the city in the hamlet of Staatsburg and surrounded by public park land, it boasts sweeping views of the Hudson River, a 15-bedroom manse and a string of abandoned 19th-century farm buildings, including a large barn with clover-leaf windows. Balazs bought the farm in 2004, when he was dating Uma Thurman, and until two years ago used it as a quick country getaway.
Though he’s been romantically linked to everyone from Courtney Love to Chelsea Handler since his breakup with Thurman, since 2010, the jet-setting bachelor has settled nicely into the role of country squire. His private farm — which boasts not only chickens, but pigs, an apiary and lots of leafy vegetables — supplies about 10 percent of the Standard Grill’s larder. That’s nothing to sneeze at when you consider the restaurant serves upward of 1,000 people a day.
Nowadays, the bleary-eyed, fashionably unkempt masses who congregate for weekend brunch at the Standard Grill are apt to be greeted by Renae Adams, a hot girl in pigtails, a lemon-yellow gingham dress and Mary Jane shoes, selling eggs out of a basket ($5 for a half-dozen). Only Balazs could turn such a wholesome act into a flirtatious, modern-day version of the cigarette girl.
But the egg business is for real. The Standard Grill gets a twice-weekly delivery from Balazs’ farm, in shades ranging from celadon to sand, and Adams carries a few dozen in her basket, frequently changing out her supply so that they stay cool.
Though her official title is “egg girl,” Adams says she sometimes is mistaken for “Dorothy” or “Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Recently, a customer told me the color of the eggs are dependent on the feed, though I tried to explain that it’s actually dependent on the breed,” Adams laughs. That’s because the restaurant’s “free-roaming, organically fed, mollycoddled hens” are actually an assortment of birds with bucolic names such as Buckeye, Barred Rock, Blue Andalusian and Rhode Island Red.
Could decades of NYC decadence have forced Balazs, 55, to literally run for the hills? Or is this just another smart business move rooted in the farm-to-table zeitgeist? He isn’t telling. But his agrarian vision extends beyond personal profit.
This summer, along with business partner James Truman, the former editorial director of Conde Nast, he announced the creation of a new 10-acre organic farm at Mills-Norrie State Park, which borders Locusts-on-Hudson. While Balazs and Truman do not own the plot, they are investing in it and managing it in partnership with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
“A century ago, the farm at the Locusts occupied a central role in the local community, and we hope that now it can do so again,” Balazs said, referring to the vast park extending beyond the boundaries of his estate, built by William B. Dinsmore in 1873. At one time, it produced a butter so famous it was said to command “twice the price of ordinary butter because of its high quality,” according to a 1983 article in the Hyde Park Townsman.
Balazs will restore the park’s late 19th-century barn and transform it into a public educational center, in a project reminiscent of Stone Barns on the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills.
It’s unclear whether Balazs will revive the famous Dinsmore butter, but already in the past year, he has doubled the amount of produce that gets delivered from his farm to the Standard Grill.
Last Wednesday, the restaurant received a shipment of kale, little gem lettuce, Swiss chard, mustard greens, tomatoes, squash, beets, onion and herbs.
“It’s a learning process,” says chef Dan Silverman, who visits the farm monthly and consults with Truman to decide what is planted by a half-dozen employees.
About 50 freshly slaughtered chickens had also arrived for Friday night’s specials list: pan-roasted Freedom Ranger chicken served with sauteed greens, garlic, rosemary and thyme ($25). The chickens usually sell out in a couple days, Silverman says.
Starting in the fall, Silverman will get pork from the farm’s Tamworth pigs, a rare breed originating in England.
Right now, eggs are more bountiful, showing up on the weekend brunch menu and in the basket slung on Adams’ arm.
“People really like [the ‘egg girl’],” says Silverman.
“It starts a discussion [about the farm].”
Call it an opportunity for a good lay — after all, would you expect anything less from Balazs?