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%u25a0 ^A t l a n t i c A v e n u e %u2022 A t l a n t i c A v e n u e %u2022 A t l a n t i c A v e n u e * A t l a n t i c A v e n u e %u2022 A t l a n t i cAvenue Of The Antic GrowsAnd Changes With The YearsNewly renovated Atlantic Gardens with developer Bill Harris (L) and Ted Hills (R) (Occhiogrosso Photo)Gardens CultivateShops And HomesBY STEPHEN HABERSTROHDerelicts called that strip of Atlantic Avenue between 3rd and 4th Avenues %u2018home%u2019 two years ago. On a cold winter night they would rip down the tin barriers and planks which which the buildings had been boarded up and slip inside to light a fire.Ted Hilles and Bill Harris called it a %u201c festering sore%u201d but in November 1977 they purchased nine buildings on the block to start the rebirth of Atlantic Gardens as the complex is now called.Convinced that Brooklynites would rather see tasteful renovation rather than a site ' with demolished buildings, they made plans to restore the structures using special coordinated colors and designs to retain the antique flavor. %u201c It would%u2019ve been a public outrage to tear them down.%u201d says Harris.Receiving a $400,000 loan for construction from Citibank, work began in April 1978. Tenants began occupying the completed buildings in February this year and the project was completed in June. From 350 applications, the 24 apartments were quickly rented along with eight of the nine storefronts.Harris and Hilles together own Wallabout Development Corp., where Hilles was the contractor and Harris, the owner of Renaissance Properties, therentingagent. The Williamsburgh Savings Bank is holding the mortgage for Atlantic Gardens and the pair are mulling over turning some apartments into cooperatives.Tbe success of Atlantic Gardens suggests that there is some wisdom in renovations andalso how harmonious a stretch can look. The backs of the nine houses face the Gardens and the derelicts probably wouldn%u2019t recognize it.What was a junkyard two years ago today are trimmed lawns overshadowed by carefully supoorted trees surrounded by a picket fence. Arid in the front arc winaows with four extra large panes, old fashioned lighting fixtures, an elaborate wrought iron gate, tin ceilings, giving the Avenue that tiirn-of-ihc-century air isphcrc.Harris says the time of the project coincided with rising rents in nearby neighborhoods, which partially explains the overwhelming number of applications, the rents at $275 for one bedroom apartment, $410 for two bedrooms, may explain the rest. %u201c It turned out to be a better deal than we anticipated,%u201d Harris admits.Loretta Abel, a resident of Atlantic Gardens since March, shares Harris%u2019 favorable opinion, though for different reasons. A former Manhattanite who found Greenwich Village %u201c threatening and expensive%u201d she finds life in the Gardens %u201c a fantastic experience.%u201d%u201c It has a congenial mixture of people and we held a barbecue to get to know each other. It was marvelous, a camaraderie was established,%u201d exclaims Abel. She finds it safe and conveniently situated, close to a number of subways.BY BETSY KISSAMAtlantic Avenue, which only a few short decades ago functioned almost exclusively as a truck route, is today a strong commercial center with its own fifth annual 11-block street festival that rivals any street fair in the city. In the early 1970's, new merchants, often residents of the surrounding communities, began opening antique and used furniture shops, craft stores, and even restaurants. Before then, a few scattered businesses most going back a generation or so, and the Near East specialty shops between Clinton and Court Street, were basically all that was keeping the avenue alive commercially. Lowrents and available space made the avenue an ideal testing ground for incipient businesses. Many of these enterprises continue today, some in the same locations and others in new locations along the avenue that afford growing space.Owners of the most recently opened stores on Atlantic arc, still, largely nearby community residents. %u201c It is very convenient to work where you live,%u201d says Boerum Hill resident Stan Murray, a partner in the Food Basket at 398 Atlantic Avenue, and there is the added advantage of being around the street %u201clong enough to know what%u2019s going on.%u201d Karen Washington from nearby Fort Greene chose Atlantic for her new shop. The Weaver%u2019s Knot, 535 Atlantic Avenue, because it %u201c is a very good street commercially,%u201d %u201c is convenient to home,%u201d and %u201c a reasonable size for the rent.%u201dStan Murray, in one of the latest additions to the Avenue, The Foodbasket. (Occhiogrosso photo)%u201cThe time is ripe on the avenue to open any kind of business,%u201d says Murray, and all along the many blocks, unpainted furniture, ice cream, craft, hardware, bicycle, custom furniture, thrift, antique stores, restaurants, and more arc taking root. The street, many feel, has already been established ar the capital of turn-of-thc-ccntury oak furniture. Susan Taback of The World of Wood and Wicker at 139 Atlantic Avenue, one of several shops selling unpainted and custom furniture, secs new furniture as a %u201c contrast%u201d to the numerous antiques that visitors to the street now expect to find.Change is a way of life on Atlantic Avenue these days. Stores appear, and stores disappear; but their overall numbers are surely multiplying! And most people, like Taback, arc bullish about what lies ahead. %u201cThe area is only going up,\looks up with the neighborhood.%u201dA Wolfe in French Clothing:New French Eatery Opens On AvenueBY LINUS GELBERThe newest newcomer to the ranks and files of Atlantic Avenue is a newcomer in substance only. On a more metaphysical level, the Lisannc Restaurant at 448 Atlantic has been kicking around and moving toward completion since 1974, when Joel Wolfe and his wife Susanne first bought the building they subsequently painstakingly renovated into their current, dapper restaurant with their home perched above .%u201cThe restaurant fantasy is a common one,%u2019%u2019 explained Joel, gazing up at the skylights that beam down into the snug dining room, lined with neat tables and a burgeoning rubber tree. %u201c Our fantasy grew more and more possible, and then finally it became real.%u201dEx-Lax Factory Hosts Lofty Lifestyles Along AtlanticBY STEPHEN HABERSTROH..One-third of the 57 units in the F.x-Lax Co-ops at 423-443 Atlantic Avenue between Bond and Nevins, have been sold, according to Developer Jerome Kretchmer and he expects ownership to be transferred to buyers of these 19 apartments sometime in November. After this date of closing has been decided upon by the project%u2019s sponsor, Recycling for Housing Partnership, and the banks, Williamsburgh and Independence Savings Banks and Citibank, the owners-to-be may move in.From his 50th floor office overlooking Central Park, Kretchmer described what had been done to the 125,000 square foot factory, not as preservation or restoration, but as %u2018rehabilitation.%u2019 The insides were emptied, as if the building which had been purchased by Austin Labcr for $450,000 had taken a massive dose of the productlless loft apartments were constructed ranging in price from $34,000 or 815 square feet to $83,000 for 1656 square feet, along with a monthly maintenance fee.Kretchmer considers co-operative apartments to be %u201c the next best thing to owning a house,%u201d and thinks the revitalization of this block which the former Ex-Lax Inc. had been unable to peddle in the business sector, may entice banks to support similar undertakings on Atlantic Avenue in the near future.After the three banks had made financial committments, Kretchmer and Austin Labcr, together forming Recycling for Housing Partnership, experienced some financial difficulties in June, 1978 and the conversion was delayed several weeks. Kretchmer, who had expressed a faith in Atlantic Avenue as a residential section of Brooklyn from the outset now feels it %u201c more strongly than ever.%u201dThe ground floor of the Ex-Lax Co-ops is an industrial, muddy brown and corrugated tin shuts off the driveways. It is being reserved as commercial space and Krctchhonrs tor a suoermaricet, sporting goods store, antique shop, and a florist. Sites for these could be set up in three to four weeks, in Krctchmer%u2019s estimation, but today they remain unsold.Inside the new LisanneRestaurant with ow ner JoelWolfe (Occhiogrosso Photo)%u201c We sensed five or six years ago that this was where things were happening,%u201d he confined, retelling the circumstances tha' brought him to Boerum Hill from his previous house in Fort Greene. %u201c When we originally bought this building for a restaurant, we didn%u2019t think we%u2019d live here; but then, looking the whole thing over, wt decided it would be desirable to live above it. After all. the natureoj this business calls for you to spend a lot of time here.%u201dDespite his dreams of opening e restaurant. Wolfe docs note that he came upon the world of cooking rather late in life. %u201c It began when ) was first married,\wife had a job in Connecticut, which was sort of a reverse commute, and so I had to learn ho%u00bb to cook. A French cuisine came about because that%u2019s just the way 1 learned.%u201d %u201c And also,%u201d chimes it cook Bill Mchlman, %u201c because it%u2019s the best food.%u201dEach night%u2019s menu will boast a minimum of four dishes, Wolfe assures; some of this week%u2019s specials include Escabeche of Bluefish and a cold Yogurt Soup with a sprinkling of walnuts. Lisanne seats a comfortable 49 people in its off-white, craftily-lit dining room, and whenever possible, depending usually on how crowded or frenetic the evening is, special needs like vegetarian or cholcsterol-free diets will be catered to. Dinners range in price from $12 up to a high of about $16.Lisanne is open Tuesdays through Sundays starting at 6pm (%u201c when wc get finished, we%u2019ll Hosr%u2019fi and Wolfe plans to begin a Sunday brunch meal at 11 am starting on October 21. For more information or reservations, ; 1 thercst aurant at 237-22%u2019!