布鲁克林复兴

The Brooklyn Revival

Brooklyn Heights, NY

The town house was completely restored, inside and out.

The radiused-corner upper cabinets frame

the La Cornue range in the kitchen.

Completed: March, 2016

Photography: Matthew Williams — Styling: Hilary Robertson

Townhouse Renovation — Architecture & Interior Design

Sometimes, we just can’t help ourselves. When we happen to walk by a down-on-its-luck building with a for sale sign out front, our minds begin to wander and we start dreaming about what it could become. When we saw this 1830s townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, however, we didn’t just dream—we pounced. Because we couldn’t actually afford such a building for ourselves, we put together a team to buy it and hatched a plan to renovate and sell it. Then, we completely rebuilt it from the inside out, right down to replacing the floor joists and designing a sweeping new central staircase beneath a skylight. We took off the roof to create a new open-air deck in the former attic, which has views to the East River and Lower Manhattan. We introduced details we had originally conceived for client projects but never used, such as kitchen cabinets with gently curved corners and marble flooring with circular brass inlays. Letting it go at the end of the process was bittersweet, but we know there are many other proud old houses just like it waiting for a similar treatment.

A sculptural staircase with a curved

steel-and-walnut handrail.

A detail of the baroque marble mantelpiece,

discovered in the basement of the house,

that was restored and installed in the living room.

A sun-drenched family room opens to the backyard.

The City skyline visible from the roof deck.

Project Credits

General Contractor: Construct BK

Millwork: Construct BK

Landscape: Emily Thompson Flowers

Architect of Record: Kevin Byrne Architects PC

Structural Engineer: Blue Sky Desgins

Studio DB Team: Britt Zunino, Damian Zunino, Kate Gray, Ben Sandell, Sunny Salkar