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The Insider: Apartment into Loft in Brooklyn Heights
Welcome to The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at interior design and renovation in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a design journalist who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
IN THE MID-’80s, a developer chopped up a former YMCA building in Brooklyn Heights, creating condominium apartments with dropped ceilings and sorry little galley kitchens. When a couple in the arts — she’s a fashion editor, he’s a screenwriter — bought a 1,344-square-foot duplex in the building a few years ago, they called on Brooklyn-based designer Elizabeth Roberts to help them realize the potential they knew was there.
Roberts removed walls, raised ceilings and doorways, and re-thought the uninspired staircase to the upper level, where three bedrooms were converted to a master bedroom and a home office (there’s a powder room on the lower level, a bath-and-a-half upstairs). Most strikingly, the kitchen area was opened up to bring in light and make the space more conducive to entertaining.
Fred Taverna of New York Interior Construction (212/251-0790) saw the project through. Total cost: approximately $300,000.
“When they purchased it, it was an apartment,” says Roberts. “Now it’s a loft.”
Photos: Sean Slattery
More, including ‘befores’ and construction shots, after the jump. (more…)
02/09/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Green Agenda in Carroll Gardens
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly look at the state of interior design and renovation in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written by Cara Greenberg, a design journalist who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit. Find The Insider here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
This c.1900 row house is about as green as you can get without being Leed-certified. “Our clients had a very strong green agenda, but a normal budget,” says Jeff Sherman of the DUMBO architecture firm Delson or Sherman, which took on the job of converting a three-unit house that had had the same owner for 50 years into a single-family residence for a couple with two kids.
“Leed certification winds up being a surprisingly expensive process,” Sherman explains, citing the paperwork involved in documenting sources and the required follow-up inspections. Instead, Sherman and his partner Perla Delson, who are accredited to do Leed projects, strove for maximum impact at minimum cost. The result is a project that still has “strong green credentials,” as Sherman puts it. The contractor was the Brooklyn-based Square Indigo.
The 20′x44′ four-story building is chock full of sustainable strategies, including radiant heat flooring, solar water heating, spray foam insulation, a high-efficiency boiler, and a whole-house fan (a rainwater collection system and photovoltaic panels are yet to be implemented). Daylight is maximized by enormous skylights, as well as the replacement of one-third of the back wall with expanses of glass. Materials were re-purposed whenever possible, even the little ‘Juliet’ balconies at the rear of the house, which are segments of the original fire escape.
Now sleek and utterly modern, the house had some old doors, mantels, pressed tin, and bathroom fixtures, all of which were salvaged, though not for use in this project. “The owners worked Craigslist and Build It Green to make sure any possible thing that could be used by somebody, was,” Sherman says. “The house was picked clean by the time we started.”
Photos: Seong Kwon
Much more after the jump.
02/02/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Working with Woodwork in Park Slope
Every Thursday at 11:30AM, The Insider takes an in-depth look at a recent design and/or renovation project in the borough of Brooklyn. The series is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a longtime design journalist who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun and Profit.
WORKING AROUND elaborate woodwork in a Brooklyn brownstone can be a challenge. We prize 19th century houses for their original detail, but when we want to put a 21st century kitchen on the parlor floor, well, there’s no natural place for the Sub-Zero, the Viking, and the Bosch.
The owners of this c.1890 Park Slope brownstone, a triplex with a garden rental beneath, inherited a second-floor kitchen when they bought the house in 2001. They lived with it for a decade, spending most of their time on the two upper floors. “The parlor floor was a big, beautiful, underutilized space,” says Kimberly Neuhaus of Neuhaus Design Architecture (NDA), who was hired to create a new parlor-level kitchen and two new baths. The project, which also entailed updating plumbing and electrical throughout the house, was contracted to Manhattan-based Infinity Construction.
“Our goal was to keep every bit of detail we could,” says one of the homeowners. “Kimberly managed to incorporate and maintain almost all the original woodwork.”
Lots more, including ‘Before’ photos, after the jump.
Photos: Courtesy Neuhaus Design Architecture
01/26/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Built-Ins for Brownstones
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at interior design and renovation in Brooklyn, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30.
BROOKLYN HOUSES are often woefully short on closets, so creating storage is high on many people’s to-do lists. But where to go for built-in cabinetry that is well-designed, well-built, good value, in keeping with existing architecture, and capacious enough to accommodate all the spoils of our material culture?
Enter Nastasi Vail, a Brooklyn-based design team who’ve made a specialty of custom built-ins. Their unique cabinetwork is designed to meld with a 19th century home’s character, while providing ample storage space for books, dishes, wine, and what-have-you, along with all the media, electronics, and other toys the Victorians never had.
In this post, there are three examples of Nastasi Vail’s clutter-banishing built-ins, all in Cobble Hill and all constructed by Alex Luchynskyi of A Royal Builder (201/694-8907, aroyalbuilder@yahoo.com).
- A pair of dining room cabinets on the parlor floor of a brownstone, with striking red interiors, above
- A wall in the entry foyer of a prewar apartment, with drop-down desk fronts and yellow interior
- A dining room piece in a one-family row house, with furniture-like details
David Nastasi’s and Kate Vail’s design fee is $135/hour; construction costs run $1,100-1,500 per linear foot (assuming an 8-9’ ceiling), depending on the level of complexity. Their built-ins are made of solid hardwood and MDF (medium-density fibreboard), with wood moldings.
See it all after the jump.
Photos: Ken Hild
01/19/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: 12-Footer in Lower Slope
The Insider is our weekly, in-depth look at what’s happening on Brooklyn’s interior design and renovation front, written and produced by journalist/blogger Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
TWELVE FEET SIX INCHES, to be exact. The narrow townhouse on the fringe of Park Slope stands alone, sole survivor of an original pair. “They were probably built in the 1880s or ‘90s by a developer who wanted to maximize income on a 25-foot lot,” says Manhattan-based architect Tim Rasic, who bought the skinny singleton in 2005 and made it work for himself, his wife Lisa, and the two little ones who arrived soon after.
It was a full-on interior and exterior renovation. “There had been only two owners before us, each of whom had the house for about fifty years,” Rasic says. “And they hadn’t done any work in the last fifty.” The big job included a new brownstone façade, all-new electric (the existing wiring was the very old braided type), removal of an outside toilet in a lean-to off the back wall, and chipping away concrete in the backyard to reveal old bluestone.
The serene, sun-filled interior plays off opposites — traditional and modern, rough and refined. Furnishings are a down-to-earth mix of passed-down family pieces, locally sourced vintage items, modern Italian lighting, and good old IKEA.
Photos: House/Alick Crossley Garden/Elizabeth Dooley
Much more, including the lush garden and a complete list of contractors, after the jump.
01/12/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Over-the-Top Mansion in Clinton Hill
The Insider is Brownstoner’s in-depth look at what’s happening in interior design and renovation in Brooklyn. Written and produced by design journalist/blogger Cara Greenberg, you can find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
YES, BROWNSTONER READERS, you may well have seen (and discussed) this exceptional house before. Known as the Pfizer mansion, it was a House of the Day here as far back as February 2006. It sold in 2007 to Jessica and Doug Warren, who lived there with their two teenagers through the three-year renovation that followed. At one point, says Jessica Warren, “We were camping on the top floor and cooking in an electric frying pan.”
The scary befores have been published, as have photos of the work in progress, and even turn-of-the-century documents unearthed during the reno. You may even have been in the house when it was on the Clinton Hill House Tour last spring. So what’s left for The Insider to bring to the table? New interior photos, showing previously unpublished areas and details; specifics of the mostly contemporary furnishings; floor plans, sections, and elevations by Neuhaus Design Architecture (NDA), including the new kitchen addition at the rear of the parlor floor, inspired by a long-gone, apse-shaped, glass-and-steel Victorian conservatory.
To re-cap, the 25-foot-wide, 10,000-square-foot Queen Anne mansion was built in 1887 as a private residence and later used by the Brooklyn Public Library, a Catholic girls’ school, and eventually a recording studio of sorts, with rooms rented out to Pratt students. “The roof leaked, the skylights were tar-papered over, and downspouts were shooting water to nowhere, but the grander spaces were intact,” recalls architect Kimberly Neuhaus of NDA, which brought the forlorn building back to its elegant origins, figuring out how to install all new mechanicals without interfering with the existing detail. NDA also designed the spectacular new kitchen addition, new bathrooms, and a new curving staircase. The construction manager/contractor was Brooklyn-based Interior Alterations, Inc.
The furnishings, a mostly modern mix ranging from thrift-shop finds to pedigreed auction material, are the work of homeowner Jessica Warren, who launched an interior design business, JP Warren Interiors, six months ago (she’s also an inveterate eBay shopper). “The tension between old and new benefits both of them,” she says, “and the simplicity of the modern furniture allows you to see how ornate the house really is.” One reason modern furniture is surprisingly sympathetic in a 19th century house with a 105-foot-long parlor floor may be, as Warren points out, “The long sight lines are like modern spaces.”
Above: The elaborate floor borders in the front parlor are “a re-creation of what was originally there,” says Neuhaus. “The field is original, but the ornate scroll work was too thin to be salvaged.”
Photos: Peter Margonelli / Carl Bellavia
Drawings Courtesy Neuhaus Design Architecture
More after the jump. (more…)
01/05/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Kitchen Extension in Brooklyn Heights
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly look at renovation and interior design in Brooklyn, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30.
THE IMPRESSIVE DUTCH REVIVAL row house in Brooklyn Heights, with its stepped gable and bronze plaque reading c.1820, was once home to the prolific Brooklyn architect William Tubby (1858-1944). Renowned in particular for his Clinton Hill mansions, Tubby purchased the house as his private residence and lived there for decades, adding stained glass panels and other interior detail along the way.
Above: Sliding pocket doors between the dining room and new kitchen extension were designed to complement original leaded glass elsewhere in the house.
By the 21st century, parts of the house drastically needed improvement. “There was a small extension out the back with a tiny galley kitchen,” says Gitta Robinson of Robinson + Grisaru Architecture, the husband-and-wife team hired to create a much larger kitchen and turn part of the basement into usable space for a family of four. Working with contractor Robert Taffera, R+G demolished the existing addition and put a new two-story extension across the 25-foot width of the rear wall. “It’s in a landmark district and visible from a side street,” Robinson says. “We had to go through a lengthy review process. The community board rejected it as too modern, but Landmarks liked the design and approved it.”
The new design makes use of a steel window system with thin metal sections. Some of the windows are fixed. Others are awning-style, pivoting out for ventilation. The rear half of the basement was excavated to gain more ceiling height (there’s a guest room at the front of the building and mechanicals in the center), and the backyard dug out about six feet from the rear wall to create a well.
Photos: Melanie Acevedo
Lots more after the jump.
12/29/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Converted Schoolhouse in Cobble Hill
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at interior design and renovation, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a design journalist who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
IF YOU’RE COUNTING cubic feet, the size of this two-bedroom duplex in a turn-of-the-century public school building is impressive. “It has 14-foot ceilings,” says David Nastasi, half the Brooklyn-based designing duo Nastasi Vail, “but the footprint is small.” With only 1,200 square feet in total — 700 on the lower level — it was vital to maximize use of the space.
The young couple who bought the co-op apartment in 2009 called Nastasi and his partner, Kate Vail, to help them deal with the challenge. Nastasi Vail offers an array of services, from full-scale interior design and upholstery to beautifully crafted custom cabinetry that puts away storage problems once and for all (you may know their storefront on Pacific Street near Henry in Cobble Hill, open by appointment).
They exploited those soaring ceilings with a wall of architectural built-ins to accommodate books, wine, media, and more, which required reconfiguring an existing staircase and balcony. The other major undertaking: re-designing a dated, claustrophobic kitchen. It’s now brand new and suited to the needs of a professional chef.
Photos: Ken Hild
More, including ‘Before’ photos, after the jump. (more…)
12/15/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Parlor Floor Upgrade in Boerum Hill
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at interior design and renovation, appears every Thursday at 11:30AM. Written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a design journalist who also blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit.
Photo: Elizabeth Lippman
This revamp of a parlor floor in a brick Boerum Hill row house was two-fold. First, Brooklyn-based architect Alicia Balocco opened up an existing 17-foot extension on the 20’x40’ building with a bank of aluminum-framed glass doors; a new atrium-like skylight spanning almost the full width of the building lets even more sun shine in. She also improved the kitchen layout and added a bathroom with distinctive tile walls.
Then, local interior designer Julia Mack (that’s Julia in the photo, above) gave the clients, a couple with two teenage kids, the fresh and modern look they wanted. “The house didn’t have a lot of lavish detail,” Mack says. “It seemed a perfect opportunity to bring in some modern design and not feel you were turning your back on anything that was already there.” As always, Mack made a special effort to work with local suppliers in sourcing furnishings both vintage and new.
Kitchen/bathroom/extension photos: Courtesy Alicia Balocco; Living/dining room photos: Elizabeth Lippman
More photos and info on the jump…
12/08/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: ‘No Compromises’ Reno in Brooklyn Heights
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly look at how Brooklynites are renovating and decorating their homes, appears here every Thursday at 11:30AM. It is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a design journalist who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun and Profit.
The classic Greek Revival townhouse was in need of a major overhaul when Brendan Coburn of CWB Architects came on the scene. “The brick was good,” he recalls. “Whoever the mason was in the 1840s knew what he was doing.” But the rest of the house was “sagging all over the place,” with wood and plaster detail in sorry shape, and an addition at the back that was literally falling down.
The homeowners, a couple with young children, wanted to fully restore the building, keeping its original one-family configuration. This was accomplished with the help of Pilaster, Inc., a Bronx-based general contracting and millwork company. Among the major aspects of the job: excavating three feet from the low-ceilinged cellar to accommodate fitness equipment and storage, and rebuilding the entire floor structure with LVL (laminated wood lumber), an engineered joist made of recycled wood. Then came new baths and kitchen, a rebuilt extension, new windows and French doors, and “tons of millwork and cabinetry.” Original wood detail was copied and replaced, plaster moldings re-cast. “There is not a single compromise in that house,” Coburn says.
The risk-taking decor by Brooklyn-based interior designer Jennifer Eisenstadt might be called ‘bold traditional.’ Taken individually, she says, “Most pieces are fairly traditional. It’s the combination that makes it interesting.” Like Coburn, who often works in a modern mode, Eisenstadt is versatile; she doesn’t have a specific style. “I try to give clients the best of what they’re looking for,” she says, “and help articulate their tastes and visions in cohesive ways.”
Top: A laundry room and butler’s pantry for outdoor entertaining are located in an extension at the back of the house.
Photos copyright Francis Dzikowski/Esto.com
More after the jump…
12/01/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Shipshape Kitchen in Brooklyn Heights
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly coverage of interior design and renovation in the borough of Brooklyn, is produced and written by journalist/blogger Cara Greenberg. Find it here Thursdays at 11:30.
“It started with the stove,” says North Fork, L.I.-based designer Kate Altman, who recently transformed an “impossibly bad” ’70s galley kitchen in a brownstone floor-through for a professional couple and their 11-year-old daughter. It’s now a warm, appealing, functional space with a couple of showstopping features: the lipstick-red Italian range and a custom porcelain backsplash inspired by antique Chinese patterns but whimsically including the Brooklyn Bridge.
The old kitchen was so narrow the fridge didn’t fully open; the work counter was 12″ deep. Altman bumped out a wall to enlarge the room, stealing a few feet from the adjacent dining area. Now there are wraparound CaesarStone counters and custom-built, floor-to-ceiling cabinets.”We quadrupled the storage,” says Altman. “Every square inch is used. It’s tight as a ship.” Scott Solfrian, an architect and owner of BLDG, served as general contractor.
In the early ’90s, Altman owned a beloved Park Slope fabric store, Sewing Circle. Her newest venture is Altman’s North Fork Home in Cutchogue, L.I., a mini-emporium of all things sewing and needlework, along with a selection of decorative and useful household items and gifts.
Photo: BLDG
Details and more photos on the jump. (more…)
11/17/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Total Gut Reno in Brooklyn Heights
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly look at renovation and interior design in the borough of Brooklyn, is produced and written by Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30.
The brick row house on State Street had been the victim of the same ignominious treatment that befell so many stately 19th century row houses in the 20th. The 22′x40′ building had been transformed from a luxurious single-family residence into four floor-through apartments, and in the process, its stoop was torn off; its elegant parlor windows were shortened; and all interior detail was stripped.
By the time the current owners bought the building in 2008, intending to turn it back into a one-family home for themselves and their two young daughters, it was little more than a tenement. There was nothing for it but to demolish down to the brick shell and re-build.
“It was a total gut renovation,” says Hope Dana of Platt Dana Architects, the team called in to design and oversee what became a two-year project. “Everything is brand new – floor joists, floors, walls, stairs, moldings, paneling, doors. Not one thing that’s there now was there before.” The house now has a kitchen and family room on the garden level; a living room and dining room on the parlor floor; a master suite on the second floor; three bedrooms on the third floor; and two bedrooms, a playroom and a laundry room in a converted attic space. There are three full baths and two powder rooms. Platt Dana also restored the stoop, lengthened the parlor windows, and put in all new mechanicals, including radiant floor heat.
The interiors are the work of Manhattan-based designer Marie-Christine Kresse. “I wanted to give them a clean, modern family home,” she says, “incorporating their existing mid-century pieces with contemporary.”
Interior Photos: Paul Draine
More pictures and details on the jump.
11/10/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: All the Details in Bed-Stuy
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly peek at how Brooklynites renovate and decorate their homes, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg.
Asked to describe her decorating style, the owner of this detail-laden 1890s row house shot back: “Mom, Dad, and Grandma.” By the time she and her husband bought the building in March 2009 and spent half again as much restoring its fine woodwork, plasterwork, stained glass, and other details — not to mention all-new mechanicals, windows, and a roof — there was little left over for furnishing. No matter: both come from families possessed of taste and generosity.
Her dad was an architect with a fondness for 20th century modern; his was a historian and antique collector. Much of their parents’ and grandparents’ bounty landed here, following the couple — she’s a graphic designer, he owns a wine store in Manhattan — from their Carroll Gardens rental, where they lived before embarking on the year-long quest that led to this lovely block just outside the Stuyvesant Heights historic district.
A legal two-family being used as a four when they bought it, it is now a single-family residence with a home office on the ground floor and a triplex above. They demolished existing kitchens and baths and re-purposed those spaces, installed two-and-a-half new baths and a new kitchen, and removed walls to create a building-wide master bedroom and a charming, garret-like office/library upstairs.
The most laborious task was stripping “many, many layers of shellac and paint” off the outstanding late-Victorian woodwork throughout the house, including an over-the-top carved oak staircase in the entry hall, as well as mirrors, moldings, doors, and fireplace mantels.
A resource list of tradespeople appears at the end of this post.
Two dozen more photos on the jump…
Photos: Cara Greenberg
11/03/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Clinton Hill Classic in Modern Dress
The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly look at how Brooklynites are renovating and decorating their homes, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a veteran design journalist and proud Brooklyn resident.
Hard as it may be to believe, ten years ago this immaculate 1873 brownstone on one of Clinton Hill’s most elegant blocks was chopped into six SRO [single room occupancy] units, sharing four kitchens between them. Its wood floors were so grimy no one knew they were parquet. Its imposing arched entry door had cardboard panes instead of glass. The sky was visible through holes in the top-floor ceiling.
When the current owners — a couple with two teenagers, who live on three of the four floors and rent out the garden level — bought the building in 2001 and embarked on a renovation, the house more than met them halfway. Behind the jerry-rigged kitchens, original detail lurked. The plaster crown moldings and hefty stair balusters were all there — in need of repair, but basically intact. Seven marble fireplace mantels remained. In the basement, they found all the house’s original panel doors. With the help of a master carpenter, plasterers, and other tradespeople, they put it all back together again.
The eclectic furnishings, strong on 20th century modernism, demonstrate how sympathetically clean-lined modern design can work against the more ornate splendors of 19th century row house architecture. Turkish rugs, African artifacts, found objects, and contemporary artworks round out the decor, making for a unique and lively mix.
Lots more photos and details on the jump.
Photos: Cara Greenberg
10/27/2011 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Well-Crafted Rehab in Bed-Stuy
The Insider, an in-depth look at the creative ways we Brooklynites renovate and decorate our homes, is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a veteran design journalist. Find it here on Brownstoner every Thursday.
One of the highlights of last weekend’s Bedford-Stuyvesant House Tour was the impressive level of craft in house #8, a bay-windowed 1890s limestone. Christiaan Bunce and his wife Jules Gim bought the building 3-1/2 years ago and recently completed something between a renovation and restoration on all four floors, the lower duplex that is their home and two one-bedroom rental apartments above.
Christiaan is a principal of Khouri Guzman Bunce Limited (KGB), a multi-disciplinary firm whose work ranges from 20,000-square-foot from-the-ground-up Hamptons homes to urban interior renovations and modern furniture design. Christiaan met his business partners, David Khouri and Roberto Guzman, both architects, ten years ago at the ICFF Furniture Fair; they now have a showroom in Chelsea and a workshop near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where Christiaan oversees production of the company’s unique custom furniture.
Dig those stunning zigzag-patterned floors of white oak and walnut in the new kitchen, above; they run the 45-foot length of the parlor floor. Throughout the building, details and trim are uniform and mostly new. “Some might argue I could have restored the parlor floor, but it was almost impossible,” Christiaan says. “The house was really rough, with bad water damage, and lots of detail had been stripped.” Instead, he re-created it, trying to stay true to the house’s spirit with his choice of materials and decorative treatments. He even made silicone molds of existing cornices and other architectural details, and cast them in plaster. “But I would never call myself a restorer,” he adds.
Essentially, Christiaan created a fresh envelope with strong echoes of the original architecture. “It’s important that the architectural foundation and the decorative components be solid and unified,” he says. “Then you can insert modern furniture and it becomes a dynamic relationship.”
Read all about it and see more photos after the jump.
Photos: Alan Tansey (more…)
10/20/2011 11:30 AM
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Feb 09, 2012 | 11:02 AM