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The Outsider: Outdoor Living Room in Fort Greene
WELCOME to The Outsider, Cara Greenberg‘s Sunday garden column for Brownstoner. KNOW OF ANY BEAUTIFUL BROOKLYN GARDENS? (Sure ya do!) Contact caramia447@gmail.com
THE LONG, NARROW BACKYARD is a challenge garden designers face in Brooklyn more often than not. The owners of this one, 22′ wide and more than three times as long, approached James Stephenson of The Artist Garden with the notion of two patios plus lots of planting space. They were looking for a clean, modern look that would blend with their indoor aesthetic.
Working with oversized pieces of thermal bluestone, Stephenson laid out a plan for a central inner patio that serves as an outdoor family/living room, and another toward the rear of the property that provides overflow entertaining space for larger groups.
A central pergola made of iron and cedar is an architectural element that will also become a shade structure when the wisteria vines planted in each corner climb up and over.
Don Statham, an Upstate NY-based garden designer, collaborated on the plantings, which include what Stephenson calls “epic” columnar oak trees that will eventually create privacy walls on either side of the central patio. Everything is planted in the ground; there are no raised beds or containers.
The south-facing garden, with in-ground drip irrigation, is essentially low-maintenance.
More detail and photos after the jump.
Photos: James Stephenson
05/27/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Attic ‘Cabin’ in Fort Greene
Welcome to The Insider, here every Thursday at 11:30AM. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, as is The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden series, every Sunday at 8AM. ALWAYS SEEKING LEADS TO WORTHY INTERIOR DESIGN AND GARDEN PROJECTS!!! Please contact caramia447@gmail.com
THIS MULTI-FUNCTIONAL SPACE at the top of a five-story brownstone was once “a weird scenario,” says Manhattan-based architect Ole Sondresen, who renovated the entire building for a pair of artists with two college-age children — a utilitarian attic, 22′x60′, divided up into “six or seven little storage spaces.” Now it’s a destination for the family, used for movie nights, games, and music-making. “It’s meant to be almost a cabin at the top of the house,” Sondresen says. “A getaway in one’s own space.”
Enhancing the cabin feeling is the unorthodox use of wood, wrapping around the entire ceiling and down the wall to become a bench under the windows. “We saw it as an upside-down space,” the Norwegian-born Sondresen says. “While the rest of the house has wood floors and plaster ceilings, this space has white painted oak floors and the warmth of wood as the ceiling.”
The contractor was William Dorvillier.
More photos and details of the attic loft, as well as the new kitchen on the parlor level, after the jump.
Photos: Ole Sondresen
05/24/2012 11:30 AM
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The Outsider: Viewing Garden in Park Slope
WELCOME TO The Outsider, Brownstoner’s weekly garden column, written and produced by Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Sunday at 8AM.
THIS GARDEN BEGAN as an outline on a napkin, sketched out by the homeowner. “The client is an architect and had very strong ideas about what he wanted,” says Sasha Newman of Little Miracles Designs, who was hired to turn the concept into a finished design and then to oversee fabrication and installation.
The round central structure, made of Corten steel, serves two functions; it acts as a retaining wall to hold up soil and support plantings, and also provides convivial seating for a group. It was Newman’s inspiration to use Corten for the structure, rather than the stone the client originally had in mind. “A thick wall would have been visually too heavy for a rectangular backyard 18-20′ wide,” he says. Instead, he suggested the material popularized by the sculptor Richard Serra and by its use on the High Line — an alloy that doesn’t rust through, but merely oxidizes on the surface for a coppery patina.
The garden is designed to be viewed from all levels of the house. Plantings were informed by contemporary currents in American landscape design, using primarily foliage plants that don’t rely on floral color but whose interest comes from contrasting combinations of texture. The garden is also, says Newman, “as close to zero maintenance as you can get.”
Details and more photos, including construction shots and a complete plant list, after the jump.
Photos: Sasha Newman
05/20/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Gentle Reno in Prospect Heights
WELCOME TO THE INSIDER, our weekly in-depth look at a recent interior design/renovation project, here every Thursday at 11:30AM. Like The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden series on Sundays at 8AM, The Insider is written and produced by Cara Greenberg.
IT TOOK TERI BRAJEWSKI of TWB Design a full year of apartment-hunting to settle on what she calls a “petite three-bedroom” in an eight-unit building from the 1890s. It wasn’t just the intact woodwork and other Victorian niceties, including a fretwork archway, bay window, and tiled mantelpiece, that sold her on the ground floor unit, or even the private backyard. “It was one of the few I looked at and didn’t think, ‘If only I could tear this wall out…’”recalls Brajewski, an interior designer and co-owner of Interior Provisions, an online and by-appointment home goods shop in Nolita.
In fact, the long, narrow, 1,100-square-foot floor plan functioned so well for her family — she’s a single mom of two — that all the walls stayed right where they were. Brajewski lost no time gutting and replacing a full and a half bath; that’s been the major work to date. Other sprucing up includes floor refinishing, new lighting throughout, new furniture, and a carefully considered paint job with Benjamin Moore’s Natura line of no-VOC paints.
Brajewski is a LEED AP (accredited professional). She incorporated some sustainability principles, a water-saving toilet and the use of locally-made and vintage furnishings among them. Contemporary and mid-20th century pieces look magically at home in their surroundings. “The gracious scale of mid-century furniture works very well against a Victorian backdrop,” she says.
For now, Brajewski is living with the existing kitchen, though she bought a new dishwasher and washer/dryer, and the garden remains a frontier yet to be conquered. Brajewski “called in a ton of favors and got a lot of trade discounts” but estimates the cost of her improvements, including new furnishings, at about $100,000 for a civilian. The contractor was Jim Savio.
Above: The apartment’s front room is divided by an archway into areas Brajewski uses as a living room and a home office. The made-in-USA sofas are contemporary, from Thayer Coggin, but with a ’50s/’60s look. The vintage coffee table is from a shop in Hudson, NY; the rug from a sample sale. Cafe curtains were made by Angel Threads of Brooklyn.
Photos: Ofer Wolberger
See more, including a complete list of paint colors, after the jump.
05/17/2012 11:30 AM
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The Outsider: Perennial Power in Windsor Terrace
Welcome to The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden column by Cara Greenberg, here every Sunday at 8AM.
JOY MAKON’S BACKYARD measures all of 17×24 shady square feet, but that hasn’t stopped her from making the most of her gardening opportunities. There’s also a small, sunnier front bed, and a long, narrow deck in back, which she brightens up with container plantings.
When Joy and her husband Sol began their garden planning back in 1996, they had help from garden designer Glenn Smith. Smith built the wood lattice fence and stone central patio, and recommended the major landscape shrubs — arborvitae, chamaecyparis (conifers or evergreens in the cypress family), holly, rhododendrons, Japanese azaleas, cotoneaster, and enkianthus.
Excessive shade is the main challenge, one Joy has learned to work around. “My garden gets a lot of shade from a Norway maple between my house and the one next door. I’ve learned that green is a wonderful color. I build interest with textures from grasses, ferns, and chamaecyparis shrubs, and use pots of annuals to brighten up dark areas.”
Ninety percent of Joy’s plantings are perennials (hardy plants that survive winter in the ground and re-emerge each spring). Every couple of years, in the fall, she adds flowering bulbs, mostly muscari (grape hyacinth). Because of the Norway maple’s roots, she says, “it’s impossible to dig. I literally go out with a drill bit.”
See and read more after the jump.
Photos: Joy Makon
05/13/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Nordic Edge in Park Slope
This is The Insider, Brownstoner’s every-Thursday look at a recent interior design/renovation project in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by design journalist/blogger Cara Greenberg. who also writes The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden series, Sundays at 8AM.
SOMETIMES IT TAKES a view from the other side of the world to shake things up a little. In Brooklyn, with our wealth of historic architecture, interior design often veers toward the [yawn] traditional. In this 5-bedroom triplex, created from two apartments in a modern building, native Norwegians Anna Cappelen and Nina Wolff, founders of the SoHo-based design firm Curious Yellow, have introduced “a rock’n'roll aesthetic” to the proceedings, says Victoria Arnan-Fretheim, a designer in the four-woman shop. (The company’s name comes from a 1967 Swedish film that broke ground for its sexual candor.)
Their trademark blend of unusual materials, rich textures, and wide-ranging styles is evident. Romantic elements bump up against hard-edged ’70s, graphic patterns against all-white Scandinavian practicality. “We like to mix it up, cross borders, balance eras and idioms,” says Victoria Arnan-Fretheim, a designer in the four-woman shop (the fourth member of the team is Chloe Pollack-Robbins).
The architectural design, including a breakfast area with angled plywood walls, a mudroom fitted out with storage, and all other built-ins throughout, are the work of architect Ole Sondresen.
See and read more after the jump.
Photos: Margrethe Myhrer
05/10/2012 11:30 AM
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The Outsider: Rooftop Farm in Bed-Stuy
Welcome to The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden series, in this space every Sunday at 8AM. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who also contributes Brownstoner’s interior design/renovation column, The Insider, Thursdays at 11:30.
Spinach, kale, lettuce, onions, carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas, strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, pumpkin, and broccoli — all grown from seed — are underway this season in Pamela Reed’s and Matthew Rader’s rooftop vegetable garden (that’s a view of last year’s garden, above, in late summer). Artists who live on the fifth floor of a six-story loft building, they began their mini-farm in 2010. It has since grown exponentially, to around 500 square feet.
“You just want to keep trying new things,” says Pamela. Both are from small towns, Matthew’s in Ohio and Pamela’s in Pennsylvania, so growing vegetables is not entirely new to them. “For my 8th birthday, I got a wheelbarrow,” Matthew recalls.
Though they are renters, the building’s owners “have been really nice about it,” Pamela says. “Though at first, I think they expected just a pot or two.” Veggies are grown in wood boxes lined with plastic, or 20- and 36-gallon Rubbermaid bins, using bagged potting mix. They compost, have a worm bin, and don’t spray pesticides, but being wholly organic “is not an enormous concern of ours,” Matthew says.
Water is collected in rain barrels; they’ve also stretched a hose from a nearby laundry room. But even if the couple had to carry water up the stairs in jugs, as they did the first season, they probably would. This garden is nothing if not a labor of love.
Arriving home last August after a week away, during which Hurricane Irene hit NYC, “We got out of the cab and before we even went to see our cats, we took our suitcases up to the roof to see how our poor garden had fared,” says Pamela. There was some shredded foliage and a missing pump, but “structurally it was fine, and everything recovered.”
Both consider it a shame that rooftop gardening isn’t more prevalent in cities across the country. “Our building has a roof the size of a football field, and we’re the only ones taking advantage of it,” says Pamela. “Everyone who lives here could have a nice-size garden on the roof.”
Lots more photos and info after the jump, and if you want more still, visit Pamela’s blog.
05/06/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Beautiful Basement in Prospect Lefferts
Welcome to The Insider, a design and renovation column appearing on Brownstoner every Thursday at 11:30AM. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who also contributes The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new garden column, Sundays at 8AM.
HERE’S WHAT PROFESSIONAL DESIGN can do: turn a miserable subterranean space under a 1915 Tudor-style row house in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, formerly used for laundry and junk storage, into a serene and lovely 800-square-foot office suite for two psychotherapists, with a waiting room clients have been known to come early just to relax in.
Jennifer Katz and Maria Gonzalo hired Manhattan-based interior designer Caroline Beaupère for the job. “We gutted everything,” Beaupère says. “It was major work.” Windows were unblocked, and a concrete slab floor removed and ceiling beams exposed to gain additional height in a space whose original ceiling height was barely 7 feet. “We gained about a foot by removing the ceiling and building a new slab as low as we could.”
Colors, materials, and furnishings, including earthy wood pieces, a whitewashed oak floor, and linen window shades, were all chosen, Beaupère says, to create a “soothing, Zen environment.”
See more, including ‘befores,’ after the jump.
Photos: Matthew Arnold
05/03/2012 11:30 AM
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The Outsider: L-Shaped Deck in Park Slope
Welcome to The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new Sunday column devoted to design and use of outdoor space, from backyard gardens to green roofs. Like The Insider on Thursdays, it’s written by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit. Find The Outsider here every Sunday at 8AM.
THE NEW WOOD DECK and the backyard behind this single-family limestone row house are essentially one and the same. “The backyard is very tiny,” says landscape architect Liz Farrell, who masterminded the project. “The whole backyard is the deck.”
In an available L-shaped space about four feet off the ground at the rear of the 17.5-foot-wide house, Farrell replaced an old deck that had rotted away with a new one made of ipe, a Brazilian hardwood. It incorporates arbors for climbing vines and planter boxes for herbs and annuals. A hedge of bamboo in an 18-inch wide strip across the back of the property provides total privacy screening (it’s planted in a concrete trough, so there’s no danger of it getting out of control).
The owners, a couple with grown children, wanted space for seating, dining, and a grill. They now have all that, as well as low-voltage Mission-style lighting and a drip irrigation system that feeds the bamboo and the planting boxes.
Dineen Construction was the builder.
See more after the jump.
This week’s Outsider is brought to you by The Artist Garden: James Stephenson’s Artist Garden brings 20 years of experience in high level hardscape design, as well as all aspects of garden installation from planting to irrigation and lighting.
04/29/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Uber-Stylish Townhouse in Prospect Heights
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly interior design and renovation column. It’s written by Cara Greenberg, also a contributing editor at the newly launched New York Cottages & Gardens, from which this post is adapted. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
SO MANY BELOVED SHELTER MAGAZINES have folded in the past few years that it’s especially heartening when a new title arrives on the scene. This spring marks the inaugural issue of New York Cottages & Gardens, a sibling of the existing Hamptons Cottages & Gardens and Connecticut Cottages & Gardens (you can pick up a copy at the Brooklyn stores listed at the end of this post, or subscribe by clicking here).
If you’re wondering what constitutes a New York “cottage,” editor-in-chief Kendell Cronstrom lays it out in his introductory letter: “Our brand’s notion of the term champions an overall contentment and satisfaction with where one lives,” he writes. Any housing type can qualify, “as long as the décor is good.”
Certainly that describes the sophisticated 1870s brownstone belonging to Mariza Scotch, an accessories designer; Diery Prudent, a fitness trainer; and their 12-year-old daughter. Converted with meticulous attention to detail by Murdock Solon Architects from a 3-family to a single-family home, the house is sparely but stylishly furnished with pieces individually sourced from mostly local artisans and suppliers.
Highlights include a professional-style cook’s kitchen and a backyard with a fitness system, designed by Prudent, that can be disassembled and stored away when garden parties are planned. The renovation contractor was Amaro Construction of Staten Island.
See the house in all its chic glory after the jump.
Photos: Tria Giovan
04/26/2012 11:30 AM
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The Outsider: Gardening on Concrete in Williamsburg
Welcome to the first installment of The Outsider, Brownstoner’s new Sunday garden column. We’ll cover backyards, front yards, terraces, decks, patios, rooftops…wherever a Brooklyn homeowner or renter can stake out a garden. Like The Insider on Thursdays, The Outsider is written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit. Find it here every Sunday at 8AM.
THERE’S NO DIRT in Tyler Horsley’s Brooklyn backyard, except in pots. Yet Horsley, a professional garden designer whose urban practice involves many terraces and roof gardens, has elevated the use of containers to a high art. What he calls a “mismatched hodgepodge of dumb plastic pots” follows time-honored principles of garden design. (He prefers grayish pots to terracotta, which flakes in cold weather and whose color, he says, is “shriekingly bad with magenta and pink.”)
Horsley’s Williamsburg backyard — south-facing and open, with 6 hours of full sun a day — is a 13′x30′ concrete rectangle behind a former rosary factory converted in 2000 to one-story rental apartments. The photos in this post show it over the past decade and in all seasons. There are certain ‘backbone’ perennials, trees, and shrubs, but the garden is never quite the same from one year to the next.
How does he do it? “The first principle in a small space is layering,” Horsley says. “Get something tall that arches over people’s heads, so it feels like you’re really in a garden environment,” as well as some “things that tumble down, to get a lush dimension.”
Bold moves are the ticket, says Horsley. “Plant things simply and repetitively. If you have a plant that grows well and your conditions are perfect for it, plant more of it. Repeating stuff makes for a much more restful garden.” Planters look better if each is planted solidly with one thing, he says. “Don’t mix things up too much. If you clump together five pots with hakonechloa (Japanese forest grass) for a big sweep, it looks great.”
More after the jump.
- Horsley’s favorite local source: Crest Hardware & Urban Garden Center on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. “They opened a garden shop a couple of years ago and it’s terrific: interesting plants, unusual and thoughtful choices. They’re making a first-rate effort.”
Photos: Tyler Horsley
04/22/2012 8:00 AM
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The Insider: Fresh Take in Park Slope
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly series on interior design and renovation in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun and Profit. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
FROM A BEACH HOUSE in Santa Monica to a landmarked 1886 brownstone in Brooklyn: that’s the leap the owners of this one-family townhouse made, and many of their furnishings made it with them. “Making the house’s original detail and the clients’ cheerful graphic furnishings all work together was a blast,” says designer Lyndsay Caleo, who pulled together existing pieces with new paint colors, wall coverings, and other finishing touches.
Caleo is a partner in The Brooklyn Home Company, whose unique approach to development begins with the purchase and renovation of townhouse properties (they’ve done some dozen to date, and have a couple of new-construction projects in the works). The jobs generally include custom built-ins and cabinetry by Fitzhugh Karol, a sculptor, and often do not end until the home is furnished and decorated to the last detail by Caleo, TBHCo‘s in-house designer.
Here, there was just one major layout change, on the second floor. It had been chopped into four rooms and now consists of a master bedroom and new bath, two double closets, and a hot pink sitting room. The floors were mismatched throughout the house; TBHCo dyed them black and sealed them with a dark sealant to yield a rich chocolate brown.
The homeowners, he in the music business and she in fashion, wanted existing moldings and woodwork preserved, including a great deal of what Caleo calls ‘cake molding,’ the raised plaster detail on stairwell walls and ceiling friezes. “The fun challenge,” she says, “was bringing breath and lightness to a house that had been painted heavy maroon and gold, and making it feel relevant and contemporary.”
See and read more after the jump.
Photos: Emily Gilbert (more…)
04/12/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Speedy Reno in Williamsburg
Join us here every Thursday at 11:30AM for 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, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit.
THERE’S A NEW ONLINE MATCH-UP SERVICE in town, but this one is strictly business. Instead of potential romantic partners, theSweeten.com helps homeowners find architects, designers, and contractors for their home-improvement projects, from large (whole-house renovations) to small (a wall of bookshelves).
Launched last year by Jean Brownhill Lauer, a Bed-Stuy resident who trained as an architect, theSweeten vets and pre-approves all professionals, thoroughly checking their references and quality of work so you don’t have to. She conducts face-to-face interviews, checks licensing and certificates, and monitors client feedback before inviting them to join the network. Design professionals pay for membership; homeowners pay nothing.
One such member is Sarah Zames of General Assembly, an architect who’s just wrapping up a Brooklyn Heights studio renovation she contracted through theSweeten. Her previous project, the subject of this post, was her calling card: a little bit of suburbia in Williamsburg. The home is a 1950s brick single-family across from Cooper Park, with front and rear yards and a parking alley, as well as air rights to build upwards in the future.
The current homeowners, a couple in the arts with a small daughter, hired General Assembly in January 2011, shortly after they bought the house. It had been unoccupied for three years. “It was a disaster,” recalls Zames. “It would definitely have scared most people off. The entire thing had to be completely gutted, re-plumbed, and re-wired, and the HVAC system replaced.” After a lightning-quick four-month renovation, the new owners had a completely remodeled home with a newly efficient floor plan, and were able to move in by Memorial Day.
The house is essentially a split-level, with a ground-floor living room/dining area/kitchen measuring just 300 square feet. Steps lead down to a guest room/art studio on the lower level. There are two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor.
The general contractor was Trevo Contracting, with millwork by Tribeca Design Build. Total cost of the job: under $250K. The house was staged for photography by Sarah Zames.
See lots more photos and read all about it after the jump.
Photos: Joe Fletcher (1st and 2nd floors); Paul Clemence (studio)
04/05/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Carroll Gardens Mini-House
Join us here every Thursday at 11:30AM for 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, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit.
LET’S GET one thing straight right off the bat. “No period detail was harmed in this renovation,” declares architect Jeff Sherman of DUMBO-based Delson or Sherman. The interior of the stoop-less, three-story, c.1900 brick row house, he says, “had the feeling of a 1970s ski lodge, made mostly of plywood.”
The house has some very special features, including an entry wall of stained glass discs, above, by Lexington, KY glass artist Frank Close. A new cherry staircase has wide lower steps that create the illusion of a grand stair, leading up to a skylit top floor with a stone-walled meditation room. There’s a new custom kitchen with an orange-and-brown color scheme and two new baths, one with teak flooring and woodwork.
With only a 22′x29′ footprint to work with, the architects decided early on to enlarge the house by linking it to the outdoors. On the ground level, Delson or Sherman (the “or” goes back to the firm’s founding in the separate apartments of Sherman and his partner, Perla Delson) replaced the rear wall with storefront glass and took steps to “treat the backyard like a room.”
The general contractor was Brooklyn-based Hamilton Renovation. Cost of construction: $1.1million.
Read on after the jump.
Photos: Catherine Tighe (interiors); Tyler Horsley (garden)
03/29/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Vertical Loft House in Park Slope
Join us here every Thursday at 11:30AM for 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, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit.
THIS RADICAL RE-THINKING of a late-Victorian brownstone interior began with architect Eric Liftin of DUMBO-based MESH Architectures facing all the usual problems presented by an 18-foot-wide row house: a dark central core, cramped corridors, small rooms, an awkwardly placed kitchen.
His clients, Laura Lau and Chris Kentis, a pair of filmmakers with one child, had originally been looking for a loft, but fell in love with the central Park Slope location of this house. They asked Liftin to open up the triplex to space and light (the garden floor is a rental apartment). “They wanted the kind of family living that’s inherent in a loft — open and informal, rather than feeling everyone is isolated on different floors and cut off from each other,” says the architect.
Liftin and his team removed walls on the parlor floor to create one loftlike space, and opened up the central core of the house. “The central stair was very tight and dark, with narrow stairs and corridors,” says Liftin. “We stripped away plaster and sheetrock to show the old structure.” The original mahogany staircase remains, its elaborate carving a striking decorative feature on the parlor level. In the halls and landings on the two upper floors, flooring was replaced with translucent glass to allow light from an enormous new skylight to suffuse the entire house.
MESH re-purposed some materials from the old structure that was cut away, using salvaged studs from parlor floor walls to construct new walls on the upper floors. Ceiling beams were left exposed in the central zone, with lights made of plumbing pipe nestled among the joists. “At night, the whole vertical space is illuminated with a warm glow,” Liftin says.
The job also entailed re-plumbing, re-wiring, and cleaning up the heating and central air systems. Great Will Construction was the general contractor.
Photos: Frank Oudeman; MESH
Lots more photos, including ‘Befores,’ after the jump.
03/22/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Kid Stuff in Boerum Hill
Join us here every Thursday at 11:30AM for The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at interior design in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun & Profit.
THE STORY of this relaxed, unpretentious home is a bit different from many of those featured in The Insider of late. First of all, the homeowners did zero renovation. They bought their 1860s brick row house in near-perfect shape in 2005 and have had to do remarkably little in the owner duplex beyond paint. (They did put new kitchens in two rental apartments upstairs.) Second, they furnished the place themselves — no architects or designers involved.
That initial paint job was crucial, though. The house’s previous inhabitants had been fans of dark color; the front parlor was a deep gold, the back room navy. “We wanted to lighten the space and highlight the plasterwork,” says one of the homeowners, referring to the Italianate arches and stately window moldings typical of the Historic District block. They painted the plasterwork white and the walls of the main living space a pale mint green.
Furnishings — some purchased new, some passed down from family members, and a couple of street finds — are colorful, casual, and above all, kid-friendly. The couple’s sixth-grader and her friends more or less have the run of the place. The front parlor has been set up for gymnastics, with furniture pushed semi-permanently out of the way; mats and a balance beam are stashed under the sofa. “We want an active house,” says her mom. “The kids love that they can tumble around. They’re allowed to do anything in the house, except throw balls.”
Their daughter’s artwork is prominently displayed, along with quirky collectibles and heirlooms. It’s an eclectic, easy-going approach, which the homeowner defines as “things we’ve picked up along the way, that make us smile, that have good memories.”
See and read more after the jump.
Photos: Cara Greenberg
03/15/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Super-Modern Addition in Brooklyn Heights
JOIN US HERE every Thursday at 11:30AM for The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at a recent renovation/interior design project here in Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun and Profit.
TO MAKE A LATE 19th CENTURY ROW HOUSE work for an early 21st century family, Brooklyn-based Platt Dana Architects conceived an extension running the full 25-foot width of the building, over two floors. With a new family room on the garden level and a new kitchen above, it replaces an 8′x12′ kitchen in a now-demolished ‘dog-leg’ extension that jutted into the backyard and was accessed only by one small door.
The homeowners – a couple with four boys — had lived with that situation for some 15 years before deciding they could stand it no longer. “They spent a lot of time in that kitchen, and they were used to falling over each other because space was so tight, ” says architect Hope Dana. “So they were very open to the idea of big spaces with little obstruction.”
Another consideration: pre-renovation, the boys would hang out with friends on the garden level, while their parents upstairs felt disconnected from what was happening. They wanted the new spaces linked for a feeling of greater openness and connection. This was accomplished by inserting a striking floating staircase, unconfined by walls, with wood treads and a tempered glass rail.
“The clients were totally on board to have a very modern aesthetic in back. They were not interested in having the addition look like a restoration,” Dana says. What they got is essentially a triple parlor configuration – living room at the front of the parlor floor, dining room in the middle, kitchen at the back. “This triple parlor idea plays very well,” says Dana. “The aesthetic is so strong that having a very modern back piece is not that crazy.”
Uniform Teamwork (718/898-1315) was the general contractor.
Photos: Karen Cipolla
03/08/2012 11:35 AM
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The Insider: Pretty Parlor Floor in Fort Greene
This is The Insider, Brownstoner’s weekly report on a recent renovation/interior design project in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, who blogs at casaCARA: Old Houses for Fun and Profit. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
WILLIAM CALEO’S BUSINESS is doing what he loves to do: renovate vintage townhouses. A former actor, he bought and refurbished his own Park Slope brownstone in 2004, later founding the Brooklyn Home Company with several partners. To date, most of TBHCo’s dozen or so projects have been traditional brownstones converted to floor-through apartments and sold as condominiums. There are two new-construction projects in the planning stages, including an 11-story building on Bergen Street between Third and Fourth Avenues.
The Brooklyn Home Company is a one-stop shop with an artistic bent — a real-estate development company with its own in-house construction firm, architects, and design team, all the way up to sales and marketing. Caleo’s sister Lyndsay is the creative force behind the company’s interiors. When a project is ready for market, TBHCo will fully stage one unit per building with furnishings custom-designed for that unit, often by Fitzhugh Karol, a sculptor and furniture designer.
Each unit in a TBHCo building is treated entirely separately — no cookie-cutter design here. “Every space has a certain spirit to it,” Lyndsay says, even when it’s little more than a shell. She sees her task as “getting the details right while respecting what’s already there,” re-using old brick and wood wherever possible. “They have a beautiful patina that took 100 years to acquire.”
The parlor floor of this classic 1870s brownstone — a 20′x80′ building with lots of existing detail and an extension dating back almost to the time of its original construction — was part of the company’s first project. “I poured my guts into it,” Caleo says, even painstakingly going over the wide plank floors “probably ten or twelve times” with low-grit sandpaper. They sold the apartment to Lesley Townsend, who runs Manhattan Cocktail Classic, an annual cocktail festival. Lesley selected the paint finishes and furnishings, choosing to keep some of Fitzhugh’s imaginative pieces.
Much more on the jump…
Photos: Emily Gilbert www.emilygilbertphotography.com
03/01/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Letting in Light in Prospect Heights
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at a recent renovation/interior design project here in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by design writer and blogger Cara Greenberg. You’ll find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
IT’S NOT AN UNCOMMON COMPLAINT among owners of Brooklyn row houses, especially narrow ones like this 16-footer that hadn’t been renovated “in a million years.” “The clients’ main concern was how dark it was,” says architectural designer Elizabeth Roberts, who re-thought the 1890s building — an owners’ triplex with a rental apartment below — in its entirety. “We spent a lot of time figuring out how to lighten up and open up the space.”
“The house was just dripping with detailed woodwork and it wasn’t the clients’ taste,” Roberts says. “We made careful choices of what would stay and what would be removed.”
Among the major changes: taking down walls on the parlor floor to create one flowing space; replacing damaged wood flooring on the parlor level with poured concrete plaster; an all-new kitchen incorporating original detail; and a new ‘bathing room’ that doubles as creative workspace for one of the homeowners, who is a sculptor and textile designer.
The renovation budget of $750,000 also included all new mechanicals, central air, a high-efficiency gas boiler, and a revamped cellar with an art studio, cedar-lined closet, and wine cellar. On the garden level, there’s a one-bedroom rental apartment, plus a powder room accessible only to the owners.
Read on after the jump…
Photos: Sean Slattery (more…)
02/23/2012 11:30 AM
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The Insider: Pre-War Gut in Brooklyn Heights
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly, in-depth look at a recent renovation and interior design project here in the borough of Brooklyn. It’s written and produced by Cara Greenberg, a local blogger and design writer. Find it here every Thursday at 11:30AM.
IT’S ALWAYS ILLUMINATING to get a glimpse into architects’ own homes. This one, a 2,700-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 3-bath in a venerable 1920s building, is home to Hope Dana of Platt Dana Architects and her family.
They bought the bright, sprawling apartment in 2008 and “basically gutted the whole thing,” Dana says. The contractor was Jeffrey Wong of Uniform Teamwork.
The floor plan didn’t change radically. “It was a series of little rooms, and it’s still a series of rooms, but we raised all the openings to make them feel more connected to one another,” says Dana. Between the living and dining rooms, for example, a wide space formerly filled with French doors, above, now reaches to the ceiling instead of stopping two feet short of it — a simple change that dramatically increased the sense of openness and modernity.
Furnishings are mostly classic modernist designs, sparely deployed. “It’s less about decor and more about letting light in,” Dana says. “I don’t like clutter.”
More, including ‘befores,’ on the jump. (more…)
02/16/2012 11:30 AM
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May 23, 2012 | 10:55 AM