PLAYER’S CLUB: Jets rookie Coples checks out the rental scene at 254 Park Ave. South. (J.C. Rice)
The Jets’ No. 1 draft pick, Quinton Coples, has launched his Big Apple house hunt with a foray into the Flatiron District.
At 6-foot-6 and 284 pounds, the team’s new defensive end, from North Carolina, is looking for a roomy place with high ceilings. He recently checked out a sixth-floor unit at 254 Park Ave. South, which measures a spacious 1,256 square feet and features 14-foot vaulted ceilings. The $1.725 million “palatial” one-bedroom, two-bathroom condo is a combo of two smaller apartments and includes custom mahogany oak window treatments, a chef’s kitchen and “enormous” walk-in closets.
Building amenities include a residents-only gym and a 1,400-square-foot lounge with a bar, billiard tables and poker room. Broker Ashley Teitel of Prudential Douglas Elliman has the listing.
Cheech at the beach
Who knew that actor Richard “Cheech” Marin — best known as half of the stoner film duo Cheech and Chong — is also a prominent art collector? Marin was recently in the Hamptons to attend the fair ArtHamptons, where he curated a selection of Chicano art. For five days, he stayed in a 2,800-square-foot four-bedroom at the Polo Club development on David Whites Lane in Southampton Village.
The new condo development, built by Joe Farrell, has four townhouses left for sale from $1.5 million to $2 million. Cheech’s rental is now available for August — asking $40,000 for the month.
This Jess in
“The Help” and “Tree of Life” beauty Jessica Chastain has finally settled on a New York City rental while she is in town to film “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” with James McAvoy.
The actress and her dog, Chaplin, are renting at the Gwathmey Siegel-designed Soho Mews, at 311 West Broadway, where she nabbed a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,200-square-foot unit on the third floor that was asking $10,000 a month.
It’s a short-term, three-month rental: Chastain, we hear, has bought something elsewhere in the city.
Madonna’s a goner
Leave it to Madonna to be quite the real estate contrarian.
While most folks look to rent “out east” from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Madonna left her Water Mill rental in May. She was away from the Hamptons all summer on tour. And just when the city folk are leaving, she is returning — she signed a lease to move back into a Blank Lane rental starting Sept. 15. “Madge loves the home’s privacy,” our spy says.
The 8,500-square-foot, seven-bedroom rental is on 3 acres. It has two fireplaces, a great room, media room, dining room and chef’s kitchen, along with a tennis court and pool.
Madonna is already a landowner in the Hamptons, but the $5 million Bridgehampton horse farm she bought from Kelly Klein in 2009 does not include a mansion. She also owns a $32 million townhouse on the Upper East Side.
We hear . . .
That former Mets pitcher Kris
Benson, who’s embroiled in a divorce from wife Anna, is renting a fully furnished bachelor’s pad near East 46th Street and Lexington Avenue. The apartment is costing him around $3,000 a month — peanuts for a player who earned $38 million during his career . . . That Per Se chef Thomas Keller was spotted at the Chelsea Green sales gallery on West 18th Street on more than one occasion. He appeared particularly impressed with the Poggenpohl kitchens designed exclusively for the condo building by fellow top chef Eric Ripert.