What’s Next — The Brighton Beach Country Club?

We’ve often joked about this. Now it’s happening for real:

Like many New Yorkers, Brian Coles can’t wait to leave the city for his beach house when summer weekends roll around.

Coles, 35, looks forward to his glass of wine on the beach at sunset, an oceanfront jog and a nice seafood dinner.

But Coles isn’t heading to the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore for his time on the waterfront: He’s Brooklyn beach-bound — Brighton Beach, to be exact.

“I’m totally in love with Brighton Beach,” said Coles, 35, whose two-bedroom Brighton Third St. co-op has seen a 60% increase in value since he paid $185,000 for it in 2004.

“I have a lot of friends with homes in the Hamptons, and they spend six hours getting there,” said Coles, who added it’s usually a breezy half-hour drive from lower Manhattan to his weekend home.

. . .

Coles is one of a growing number who is trading Long Island beach passes and Jersey Shore weekend traffic for a second home in Brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhoods.

Although during the colonial era wealthy Manhattan residents had homes in Brooklyn Heights and elsewhere, the idea that this would happen in an era of modern infrastructure — with planes and automobiles, just to name two such crazy inventions — seems, well, odd. The only thing odder is spending a full month on vacation in the next borough:

Psychologist Michael Mason and his family spend most weekends at their apartment in the Oceana after a one-hour drive from their Briarcliff Manor home.

“The food stores are fabulous. There’s a Russian bazaar with all these delicacies: caviar, sturgeon, bread,” Mason said.

The family plans to spend its July vacation in Brighton Beach.

“When I tell my friends Brighton Beach, they have no conception,” Mason said.

You think?