Brownstone Interior Destroyed Modernized by Artist Couple
We had mixed emotions reading the Times Real Estate story this weekend about the older artist couple who financed the purchase of a Stuyvesant Heights brownstone four years ago by selling a Basquiat that one of them had picked up for $100 back in the Eighties. (Anyone know what block this is?) Aren’t there enough…
We had mixed emotions reading the Times Real Estate story this weekend about the older artist couple who financed the purchase of a Stuyvesant Heights brownstone four years ago by selling a Basquiat that one of them had picked up for $100 back in the Eighties. (Anyone know what block this is?) Aren’t there enough brownstones that have already been stripped of their original detail that someone wanting to create a modern space could avoid destroying yet another piece of history? Yes, these folks were considerate enough to call in a salvage company to save the architectural artifacts, but it’s still a bummer. And how about all that tree-cutting? What a soap opera! Update: Okay, it’s sounding like the Times article might have overstated how salvageable the interiors of this place were, so it’s looking like we came down a little too hard on these folks. Apologies.
Bankrolled by a Basquiat [NY Times]
Photo by Gabriele Stabile for The New York Times
After further dueling on this situation I came to realize how bad of a move this was.
If this couple was looking to gut reno a Brownstone, they probably could have gotten a Brownstone shell in Fort green or Clinton Hill for the price they paid for their Stuy Heights home.
They basickly paid almost a million dollars (including labor) to live in a brownstone that you cannot get its value back.
Very bad move….
sam…you continue to dispute what a few others who had actually seen the house or seen photos have said about the interior.
Besides, do you believe eveything that’s written by a reporter doing this type of story?? They always add crap that they like the sound of to fit their agenda.
It would not be so bad if the owners were honest about it and said: the interiors needed work and we don’t really like all of that period detail, so we decided to remove it and sell it to a salvage company that will sell it to people who are doing restoration work. We really wanted a spare minimalist interior that would set off our modern art and our modern furniture and we did not want our house to look like all our neighbors’ houses.
That is honesty.
“There was nothing left to save in the house” is not honesty.
Not at all my cup of tea. Photo #8 looks remarkably like my college dorm room from freshman year, in a building that one of my profs described as a ‘fine example of neo-penal architecture’.
Gravis,
It didn’t take much spying–the extensive woodwork was carried out of that house over a period of 2–3 hours. The houses on Midwood Street in Lefferts Manor have a LOT of woodwork.
PitbuillNYC you know it is said but I did not even think twice when I lived in PS. I would ask my neighbors was your door etc. original and they would say no we got them from some house in Bedford Stuyvesant. That was such a common response.
quote:
many people from Park Slope and alike areas came to Bedford Stuyvesant to steal doors and other Victorian details
alol. so those early slope gentrifiers were THIEVES!?
*rob*
I have lived in Ft. Greene, Park Slope and now I am three blocks away in Stuyvesant Heights and I have to say Bedford Stuyvesant especially south of Monroe Street has more houses that are architecturally intact than most neighborhoods. When the brownstone movement of the 1970s and 1980s was taking place many people from Park Slope and alike areas came to Bedford Stuyvesant to steal doors and other Victorian details. The houses that are gutted are investors that wear black mainly from north of the neighborhood that care nothing about preserving the architecture of these great old brownstones. Those people I wish would not buy around here. This couple is have decided to plant roots here and I really welcome to the community. I am not a fan of modern in a brownstone but I think they did a great job. I wish people like this would but more of the more unsalvageable homes in the community.
It does seem funny to dream of owning a Brooklyn brownstone, especially on one of the historic blocks of Bed Stuy, as the article claims this couple did, but to call yourself a “modernist” and dislike all the details of the brownstone era. I think that’s what many posters here are reacting to. I could imagine “settling” for a brownstone because it was cheap at the time, or the only way to find a single family home in Brooklyn, but to specifically look for one because that’s the kind of housing you like, but then turn it into something else inside, just seems to be a contradiction. Perhaps there’s more to the story — the couple did look at more modern homes first but they were too expensive or none available in the neighborhood they liked. The article implied that their first choice in housing was a historic brownstone in Bed Stuy and perhaps it left out some details that would have made this choice more understandable. However, that being said, they certainly have every right to renovate to their taste, and it seems as if they’ve created a fine space for themselves.