The wedding gifts have been put away, and the happy couple that works together in real estate is now settling into their first months of married life.
But this isn’t just any couple: Claudine DeMatos and Raphael De Niro, son of actor Robert De Niro who runs the De Niro Group at Prudential Douglas Elliman, are real estate royalty. And the story of how they met and married is as close as one can get to a real estate fairy tale, because De Niro not only won her heart, but sold her on the business as well.
DeMatos never thought she’d end up in real estate. She was working with Naomi Campbell at NC.Connect, a fashion PR and events firm, and hobnobbing with celebrities when she met De Niro through nightclub impresario Richie Akiva, who made the introduction in the Hamptons in 2004.
De Niro had just started as a real estate agent. “He wanted to get into residential sales so he could see the other side of the business,” she said, referring to his development experience. De Niro is also a partner with his father in the Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca, which opened in April.
The couple, both 31, began dating soon after they met. “Right away, I realized he was the one,” she said. They were engaged on Valentine’s Day 2007.
After DeMatos left NC.Connect, she thought about opening a clothing store, “but my partner in the venture, Tamara Levy, had gotten her real estate license and was doing very well.”
De Niro convinced her that selling properties would make a good segue for someone with so many contacts, so she went to work with the group, helping him market properties on the Web and embracing the Web’s potential to showcase prime apartments. Then she got her license, and has immersed herself in the business ever since.
The group specializes in high-end properties and keeping their boldface clients out of the real estate pages of newspapers, yet they’ve been linked with David Blaine, Ron Burkle and Carmen Kass.
DeMatos said real estate was not part of her original game plan. She grew up in Port Washington on Long Island and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Note: Correction appended
“To me, real estate was an afterthought,” said DeMatos. “I’m enjoying it, though I never thought I would. When I was growing up, my best friend’s mother was an agent; her car was always stacked with papers, and I always thought, ‘Wow, that’s hard.'”
The couple was married in March at a private ceremony in the Bahamas. The Daily News reported that 200 guests attended the wedding, including celebrities and moguls like David Blaine, Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri, Ron Burkle and Butter owner Akiva.
The pair lives in Tribeca in rented digs, but they are in contract on a place near the Greenwich Hotel.
DeMatos said their personalities complement each other’s professional responsibilities. Raphael serves mainly as the group’s public face, running to showings and meetings, while she follows up with the other six group members, oversees the Web site and engages in strategic planning.
“Now with the hotel and other projects, I have more of an active associate broker role,” she said. “He’s the ‘know-it-
all,’ the numbers man and negotiator, while I’m the marketing and computer geek. We’re an amazing team.”