Jaylen Brown is leaving Boston’s basketball team but not the apartment he has made his home. The NBA star says the residence, which he purchased at the end of 2023 and redesigned over the following two years, “felt the most like home.”
Brown lived in Boston from age 19 to 29 and developed there as a young man. Although he was traded to Philadelphia after nine years with the Celtics, he has kept the downtown apartment, which is about a 15-minute walk from TD Garden. The city later honored him by naming October 24, his birthday, Jaylen Brown Day.
The roughly 4,000-square-foot residence overlooks Boston’s Financial District and was shaped around Brown’s preferences. Interior designer Linda Zarifi collaborated with him on the project after he said he did not want a traditional dining table. Instead, the apartment features a 22-foot banquette designed to accommodate meals and other activities. Brown also requested gold details and a transparent wine cellar.
Other features include Italian marble bathroom floors, 24-karat bathroom fixtures, a custom suede pool table, a speakeasy and a hyperbaric chamber next to the bedroom. Brown described the fixtures as “jewelry for the bathroom.”
The apartment’s most distinctive object may be an 18th-century harp in the living room. Brown says he usually plays it with his chef and compares the experience to therapy. He has not taken formal lessons, but occasionally attempts to reproduce sounds made by Li Shan Tan, principal harpist of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, who performs at the apartment.
Zarifi says Brown’s most meaningful purchases are the ones connected to his personal interests and family. The home includes a commissioned portrait of his grandmother by Simon Berger, created in cracked glass, as well as art and artifacts linked to his family. Brown has also used the space to stream with rapper Lil Baby.
For Brown, the harp is among the apartment’s defining personal touches. “For him, his flex was his harp,” Zarifi says. Brown, meanwhile, says he has been enjoying the instrument’s sound and the sense of calm it brings.
Sources: Architectural Digest.