Michael Diamond was sitting in his Cobble Hill town house, marveling at the virtues of a backyard. “When I was growing up in New York, we were the anomaly,” said Mr. Diamond, better known as Mike D of the Beastie Boys. “Our family stayed, but back then families didn’t stay. Once you had a second kid, you immediately left, so the kids could run around outside.”

Mr. Diamond, who prefers not to give his age, now has two boys of his own, Davis, 10, and Skyler, 8, with his wife, Tamra Davis, a filmmaker, who also prefers not to give her age. The outdoor space is a recent addition. A year and a half ago, the family left their TriBeCa loft for what Mr. Diamond, who grew up on the Upper West Side, calls “the suburban dream in Brooklyn.”

As his wife observed, there was a steep learning curve involved. “He had never lived outside of Manhattan,” said Ms. Davis, who is from Southern California.

The result, however, was worth it. Now their older son can walk home from school by himself, an experience Mr. Diamond missed out on as a child, although his school was only two blocks away. “It was traumatic,” he said. “A very different city.”