The Insider: Vivid Color, Restored Staircase Revitalize Park Slope Limestone

“It’s safe to say we touched almost everything,” said architect Sarah Jacoby of the top-to-bottom renovation of a turn-of-the-century limestone row house. The massive undertaking transformed the two-family home to a single-family for an artistic couple — she’s in textiles, he’s in film — with two children. “We totally reworked the stairs. We moved the kitchen into what had been the dining room. We replaced the floors on the parlor level and restored the original Lincrusta wall covering.” Not to mention installing a new heating and cooling system, replacing all the old windows with insulated ones, and designing all-new baths, along with myriad tweaks.

Crucially, Jacoby, who founded Sarah Jacoby Architect, a Long Island City-based architecture and design studio, in 2014, brought back the central staircase that had been changed at some point into a straight run. She eliminated another set of stairs in an existing extension at the back of the house and added a flight down to basement level beneath the central stair.

The other key move was relocating the dining room (top photo) into the rear extension. Jacoby created an expansive new kitchen where the dining room had been, moving the green painted wall panels from the original dining room to the new one. Those panels, exuberant wallpaper from Timorous Beasties, a fanciful chandelier from In Common With, and a carved wood dining set inherited from family, would have been enough to make the space special, but Jacoby called in Hyde Park Moldings to fashion deep coved plaster moldings around the ceiling perimeter, and added a horizontal window high up on the right-hand wall for an extra exposure.

Since the house is outside a historic district, the homeowners were at liberty to replace the old windows with green-framed insulated versions. “We all liked the look,” Jacoby said. “I like restoring as much as possible, but since we’re in now times, sometimes it’s fun to have things we couldn’t have in the past, like big panes of glass and playful colors and functionality.”

The vestibule and adjacent foyer are the most original parts of the house, the architect said, retaining their original floors and woodwork. The mirror was there when Jacoby’s clients bought the place; the closet doors were repurposed from another room.

Hollyhocks wallpaper from House of Hackney is an early indication that pattern and color will play big parts in the decor throughout.

Moldings were restored in the front parlor; new oak flooring replaced the damaged original. Most of the furnishings were chosen by the clients, with Jacoby designing and fabricating new built-in millwork. The many patterned textiles and wall coverings throughout were also client driven.

Open Vitso shelving, a modern classic, came along from the homeowners’ previous residence. The Forchette chandelier was sourced from Materia, a New England maker.

Jacoby removed a wall in the middle of the parlor floor, and brought the straight flight of stairs hidden behind it back to what they had once been, with a few right-angled steps at the bottom. There’s a powder room on the landing at right, and a new flight of stairs beneath to the finished basement.

Lincrusta wall covering, an embossed product made of gelled linseed oil and wood flour that was popular in the late Victorian era, was in decent enough shape to be restored.

Hooploe wallpaper from Cole & Sons makes a moment of the tiny powder room.

In the middle of the parlor floor, on the wall opposite the stairs, Jacoby removed a non-original fireplace and substituted a new one clad in green Heath tiles. She designed it in keeping with the architecture of the house and a pair of Arts and Crafts sconces the homeowners wanted to use in this spot.

The kitchen flows into the new dining room at the rear, a design move that required structural steel work. The window opening over the sink is new. A transparent ceiling-hung display case furthers the feeling of openness.

The Blue Star stove in custom teal was an early homeowner purchase, though not intended as a focus of the kitchen design. Cabinetry with integrated pulls — natural walnut above, stained to complement the stove below — came from Avalon Kitchen and Bath in North Bellmore, New York.

One corner of the room does double duty as a breakfast nook and work-from-home space. The linear Bennington pendant light in that area, as well as the Willow fixture above the kitchen island, were sourced from Hollis & Morris.

The second-floor primary bedroom is not color shy, with pink walls and a yellow ceiling, as well as an accent wall of Hodge Splodge Cork wallpaper from Timorous Beasties.

Jacoby bumped out the walls on either side of the bedroom door to create curved closets. “We wanted to soften things. It’s a little tight there, and nicer than a sharp corner.”

A green vanity, oval soaking tub, and floor of multi-colored stone tiles laid on the diagonal distinguish the primary bath.

A guest bath sports a mosaic tile floor of black, white, and pink that only looks vintage; it was custom made by Restoration Tile in Little Rock, Arkansas. Wall tiles came from Fireclay, wallpaper from House of Hackney.

The hardworking top floor includes a bay-windowed guest room at the front, a small study with a daybed, a children’s room with cloud wallpaper, an open play area with skylights and laundry machines, and a sunny bath with carefully considered details.

Jacoby built a new bulkhead on the roof, with deck pavers of speckled concrete from Brooklyn-based Concrete Collaborative. The bulkhead, as well as the back wall of the building, were painted pink, she said, “just for fun.”

[Photos by Ty Cole]

Got a project to propose for The Insider? Contact Cara at caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at a notable interior design/renovation project, by design journalist Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday morning.

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