While Jessica Chastain may be an Oscar-nominated actress, you won't find her in the Hollywood Hills. Instead, Chastain calls this one-of-a-kind apartment in New York City home—a home she unknowingly visited back when she was a striving starlet in the Big Apple.
Equipped with over 3,000 square feet of space, several bedrooms, bathrooms and a whopping six fireplaces, the midtown Manhattan abode is a visual milestone marking the success Chastain found years after living in the same city as a student at Juilliard. In fact, Chastain revealed to Architectural Digest, which profiled the property for its October issue, that she often visited her future Central Park neighborhood for a restaurant nestled right across the street.
"My grandmother would send me $20 once a week for the baked ziti. So every Saturday night, as a big splurge, we'd go there," she told the magazine. "I didn't know until we saw the apartment, and I said, 'Oh, my God, it's right here.'"
However, at that time, the California native was not shacking up with her boyfriend, Italian count Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, but with two college roommates. "[We] shared a three-bedroom apartment probably the size of this room," she continued. "I'm not exaggerating."
The future Golden Globe winner still remembers her earliest days in the industry, particularly the constant travel. "Being on a film set, you're always going to different places," she said. "And at the beginning of your career, you can't afford to live in a nice place."
Those days are no longer since Chastain found a 19-century palace to call home, complete with more fireplaces than there are residents. "I told our realtor I didn't even want to see anything without fireplaces," she explained.
The Ralph Lauren Home-furnished abode sports silver-plated and crystal chandeliers, silk wall coverings and unique vintage items like a Rock-Ola jukebox. However, the apartment's history is just as A-list as its decor.
Before Jessica and Gian Luca had the keys, the apartment was owned by the likes of cabaret singer Bobby Short, TV star Larry Storch, composer Adam Guettel and West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein. As he famously composed, "There's a place for us." For Chastain, that place is surrounded by fireplaces in the middle of New York City.