Garden Place Townhouse, Brooklyn, New York

Garden Place is a short street in Brooklyn Heights with splendid 19th century residential architecture of different periods.  This particular house dates from the 1840s, with Greek Revival details on the street façade.  In the 1980s the house was divided into two large apartments.  Our clients’ apartment, occupying three floors in the top of the building, had been modified to include a skylit double height space taking over part of the old attic.

Over time, the 1980s renovations had grown tired, and the space had been subdivided in ways that fought against the intrinsic elegance of the building.  Our renovation was conceptually a ‘deep cleaning,’ like polishing an old artifact that had grown crusty.  Though not immediately apparent in the finished product, substantial structural modifications were required to create a more sensible and gracious flow of spaces.

To highlight the unexpected nature of the double-height space, we clad the remaining sections of the old attic in walnut planks, which continue onto the ceiling of the living room below – and surprisingly – into the interior of low-ceilinged, Hobbit-like attic room.   Materials were carefully selected to be both earthy and modern.  A terrace designed by Julie Farris of XS Space extends the interior language of the apartment into the outdoors and gives this upper floor apartment a backyard garden.

Photographs: Julian Wass / Styling: Carin Scheve
Project Team: Vrinda Khanna, Robert Schultz, Veronica Patrick, Navajeet Khatri
General Contractor: REDOnyc
Structural Engineering: Ross Dalland, P.E.
Mechanical Engineering: On Point Engineering