Delson

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)