Larry Goes Window Shopping

A colorful fine arts and crafts chain known for moving into up-and-coming ​“quirky” urban neighborhoods like Park Slope is headed to New Haven’s lower Chapel Street — because the man in the canvas coat, flannel shirt and blue jeans took a stroll there the other day.

The man in the canvas coat, flannel shirt and blue jeans, at right in the above photo, is 70-year-old sculptor-turned-businessman Larry Adlerstein of South Freeport, Maine. He happens to run a fast-growing $18 million-a-year employee-owned company called Artist & Craftsman. It has playful fine-art oriented art supply stores in 22 city neighborhoods nationwide.

Make that 23, soon. Adlerstein’s crew is hard at work demolishing and rebuilding a former pizza parlor and problem nightclub at 813 – 817 Chapel St. into his newest store, following a recent opening in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

He signed a lease last Thursday for the 4,860-square-foot space last occupied by Karma Premiere Night Life and Golden Rock Grill. Work started Saturday. He plans to open the store some time in May.

“This is our town. The ambiance. The architecture,” Adlerstein said during a visit to the space Monday, as workers from Jayare General Construction tore down walls and the ceiling.

Adlerstein’s plan coincides with an arts-oriented upscaling of the historic three-story building at 813 – 817 Chapel (pictured). It already has a yoga studio, art studio, and soundproofed music rehearsal studio on the second floor. The building’s owner, Pike International, just won zoning approval on March 19 to put four luxury apartments on the third floor.

Adlerstein’s arrival also could be seen as a step toward upscaling an ​“in between” block of downtown: a stretch of neglected but beautiful historic buildings sandwiched between the 360 State St./Elm City Market gentrified block to the east, and the Green and the upscale commercial blocks of Chapel to the west.

The block’s urban mix helped lure him here, Adlerstein said.

“I like the fact,” he added, pointing to people congregated across the street at the Chapel Street pocket-park near the corner of Orange, ​“that the bus stops right here.”

Quick Deal

Adlerstein wasn’t lured here by a city or Chamber of Commerce marketing campaign. He took a walk, got an idea — and a local real-estate agent raced to seal a deal before he even had dinner.

He took the walk a few weeks ago.

Adlerstein used to be a visual artist. Artist & Craftsman, which he founded in 1985, has grown quickly since he stashed his pottery wheel and etching press in the basement for good. He first opened stores in Portland, Maine, Seattle, and Charleston. He avoided bland middle-class suburbia, looked for urban neighborhoods with life to them, an ​“educated” population with an artistic bent but without a city-based option to buy craft supplies. The target audience includes serious fine artists and ​“crafters” alike, kids, students and hobbyists. He said annual revenues have climbed $2 million a year for several years as Artist & Craftsman has gone on a store-opening spree, in locations like Harlem and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Popular dots on the ​“hip cities” map.

Driving back from a toy fair in New York recently, he and his top exec, Steve Kenney, noticed lots of signs for colleges along the Merritt Parkway. Adlerstein had made on exploratory excursion to New Haven about a dozen years ago, but decided not to invest because the stock market suddenly tanked.

Now he decided now to give New Haven another try. He parked a rented Hyundai on Orange Street and started walking. He stopped strangers and enjoyed talking to them about why they like New Haven, about where they buy art supplies. He looked at the newly renovated building on the southeastern corner of Church and Chapel. He left messages with a few real estate agents with numbers posted in windows.

Then he walked back toward Orange. He saw a big for-rent sign in the window of 813 – 817 Chapel. It included a phone number for the agent — her personal cell number, it turned out.

The agent, Carol M. Horsford, of Farnam Realty Group, answered the call.

“‘I’m standing in front of the store,’” Adlerstein remembered telling her.

“I came in five minutes,” Horsford recalled Monday.

“You were seven or eight minutes,” Adlerstein insisted.

Either way, she got right there. They went inside. He liked the space. He asked to see the owner.

Within minutes, Horsford drove Adlerstein to the Howe Street office of Pike International’s Shmully Hecht. Horsford called Jayare Dechabert, the head of Jayare General Construction who does all his build-outs. The project sounded doable. Adlerstein and Hecht shook hands on a deal right then, and signed it a couple of weeks later.

Horsford took Adlerstein to Mamoun’s for a lamb pita. She arranged a place for him to stay overnight at a bed and breakfast (run by her mom, on Prospect). She brought him back to his Hyundai on Orange. Other real-estate agents started returning his calls from early in the day. Meanwhile, Adlerstein found two parking tickets on his windshield. No matter; the deal was sealed.

Hull’s Hangs In

On his earlier visit to town 12 years ago, Adlerstein had met Stephen Kovel, who owns Hull’s Art Supply & Framing a few blocks west on Chapel, a popular store that dates back to 1947. Adlerstein called Kovel back again the other day to tell him he’s opening up a competitor. ​“Out of courtesy” to Hull’s, Adlerstein said Monday, the New Haven Artist & Craftsman outlet probably won’t offer framing. It will focus on, among many other products, the canvases and panels and colored paper (“We buy it by the container from Europe”) that are among its most popular sellers, along with school and crafting supplies.

Stephen Kovel said Monday he expects Hull’s to beat the competition because of its long-term loyal customer base. Also, he said, locally owned stores outperform chains.

“It’s very hard to run three stores as well as it is to run one. It is very hard when you get up to numbers like 15 or 20,” said Kovel. He spoke from experience: He used to run 12 art supply outlets. Now he runs just Hull’s. Hull’s has survived in recent years while other local art supply stores like Charette and Kaye’s and Koenig’s have closed.

Adlerstein said he believes the new competition will help everyone.

“Hull’s will be here for many, many years,” he predicted.

As, he hopes, will his Artist & Craftsman. He signed a five-year lease with options for two five-year renewals.

“Your town has an educated air to it. But also somewhat funky. That’s where we do well. We do well with people who aren’t normal,” he said, putting himself in that category. ​“Slightly off…”

“… Quikry,” offered Horsford.

“Quirky,” Adlerstein agreed. ​“New England quirkiness.”