Category: <span>Before + After</span>

This Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival Rowhouse lived a number of lives since it was originally built in 1846. Throughout the home’s early years, a series of additions and renovations at the rear of the house created an eclectic collection of spaces. Since 1951, the family of architect Herbert Kaufman owned the home, until our client…

This week, we’re highlighting one of our favorite projects – The Landmark at Strong Place. The adaptive reuse conversion of a mid-1800’s Minard Lafever Church into residential units won an AIA Brooklyn Design Award. Our exterior renovation focused on respecting the historic importance of the façade and integrating the surviving historic and new elements. Whenever…

In this historic Brooklyn townhouse, opening the stair hall and restoring the original stair allowed us to reimagine the space. By carefully removing and shifting partitions, the staircase seamlessly integrates with the rest of the home. The dramatic transformation visually connects the outdoors to the stair hallway, adding natural light and an awareness to the…

  When we came across this Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival rowhome, the remnants of its historic formal entryway still remained. Its Owners wanted to restore the front façade and entryway to its mid-1800s glory. Historic trim and leaded glass detailing were intact, but in disrepair. Our goal was to retain and enhance as much of…

From an original painted brick facade, to stone veneer in the early 2000s, this townhouse had seen many iterations of its facade before implementing a full restoration back to the exposed brick with brownstone lintels and door enframement, a new cornice to match the original, new windows and front door, and new ironwork around the…

This project presented a unique opportunity to design horizontally in Brooklyn Heights. The two-story carriage house already had a unique front façade. We enhanced it with new windows, transoms, glazed doors, window boxes, and lighting to create a “jewel box” effect when the sun sets. Landscaping that surrounds the sprawling, lush roof deck softens the…

Even without an addition, this rear facade looks very different from its starting point. Not only are the large openings to the parlor kitchen and garden family room new, we also added a steel deck with stairs to connect the kitchen to rear yard. The easily overlooked detail is the transformation of the brick. Like…

More daylight and higher temperatures mean more evenings spent people-watching on the front stoop. The tight parameters of this front yard required precision when re-designing the stoop. By eliminating the second entry door and reclaiming the original arch-top window, we were able to create a more gracious, sweeping stair on the opposite side of the…

One of the compromises in adding an elevator to this Brooklyn Heights home was that it would block the natural light streaming through an existing etched glass window into this stairwell. To make room for the elevator shaft located just on the other side of the etched window, we were able to condense the stairs…

This Cobble Hill townhouse underwent a major transformation when the existing small kitchen was relocated from the garden floor to the more light-filled parlor. The kitchen did not have to give up its outdoor access because we added a deck off the parlor floor with stairs down to the yard. The new configuration allows a…