Bobbi Brown’s developer husband looks to save iconic Montclair theater

A group of Montclair residents that includes the husband of makeup mogul Bobbi Brown — attorney and developer Steven Plofker — is seeking to restore a historic theater at 486 Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair, local news outlets reported. The consortium includes Plofker, fellow attorney Larry Slous, corporate strategist Andy Childs, marketer Vincenzo Onorati, actor Patrick Wilson and film and television producer Luke Parker Bowles has signed a lease with landlord Jesse Sayegh to reopen the Bellevue Theatre in Montclair. The theater, which opened in May 1922 but shut its doors in November 2017 after 95 years of operation, is now poised to undergo reconstruction and renovations that will bring in-theater dining and a bar space to the establishment by this November. The joint venture partners, who have formed a limited liability company called Highgate Hall, have been in talks for more than a year to revive the theater, which was closed after its last tenant, Bow-Tie Cinema, declined to renew its lease. Plofker, who co-founded Bobbi Brown Cosmetics with his wife in 1991, has been a resident of Montclair since marrying her in 1998. Montclair was also home to Brown’s first storefront in 2007. The couple, who have reportedly been developing a home in the Hamptons, sold an oceanfront Bay Head home for $3.6 million in 2017. [Montclair Local]