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BROWNSTONE VOYEUR IS A REGULAR THURSDAY FEATURE on casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.
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Jamie Nesbitt-Weber, an interior designer, and her husband Herb Weber, an architect, renovated and decorated their Clinton Street home in the ‘high tech’ era of the late 1980s.
It has held up well. Good design and quality construction always do.
Classic modern furnishings and ultra-contemporary Italian lighting fixtures have proven their staying power. Ethnic accessories and rugs add textural interest, warmth, and color. It’s a lively, appealing mix.
Below: Icons like Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair and George Nelson’s bubble lamp never go out of style.
The painting above the piano is by local artist Noel Yauch.
The cabinet below, with quilted aluminum doors, is from Dialogica, as is the curvy four-poster in the master bedroom. The dining table is a post-modern classic by Massimo and Leila Vignelli, with Bottega leather chairs from Design Within Reach.
A wall of glass doors at the rear of the parlor floor, below, creates the illusion of infinite space.
The vintage suzani, a hand-embroidered textile picked up on a recent trip to Istanbul, is graphic in the guest room, below.
IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS
Clever design tricks throughout the house, like removing the front entry vestibule, lining the back wall of the parlor floor with glass doors, and creating a concave curve to add extra inches to a narrow upstairs hall, visually and practically expand the house so it feels much bigger than 19’x36′.
Fan by Ron Rezek's Modern Fan Co.
Ribbed glass transoms over doors let light into the upstairs hall
Bumping out the hall wall gained precious inches
Light fixtures make an avant garde statement
Parentesi accent light by Castiglioni
Like the interior, the garden design is clear and confident. Dominated by a classical pergola and two sculpted boxwoods, its structure is apparent even in early spring.
Thanks for making us feel great about our house! Being a designer, it is hard to keep our own house up to par with our clients. Updating our kitchen is in the schedule for this year, I hope!
nice house!
j, what s wrong with the kitchen? looks great to me
beautiful home. congratulations.
You were working on Passover! ;-)
Well, thanks for a glimpse of their lovely home.
It looks like they ripped everything out when they rehab’d the house. I’d be curious to know if the house had much original details when they started.
Of course, I have to do my regular “take issue” thing so here goes:
“A wall of glass doors at the rear of the parlor floor, below, creates the illusion of infinite space.” “INFINITE space”??? Hyperbole is really not necessary and “infinite” is inaccurate. It smacks of dishonest real estate ads and shelter magazine articles. You’re too on-the-ball, knowledgeable and sharp to need to revert to this type of use of the English language.
I also take issue with “ethnic accessories”. Sorry, but it really can come across as derogatory. Maybe the argument seems a bit too subtle to some…like stating the term “world music” is silly or even offensive to some people…but frankly, you should be able to find a better way of referring to things other than “ethnic”. It’s too much of a reflex word but it has a lot of coding behind it.
Better, why not write “accessories from around the world”?
One last picking of the nit: “…its structure is apparent even in early spring.” I think you meant: “…its structure is especially apparent in early spring.”
Thanks!
BrooklynGreene, give me a break. If you were blogging every day – and if you are, please say where – you might revert to easy phrases too. If I were doing this for print and for pay, I might take the few extra seconds to avoid cliche, but I don’t think anybody but a nit-picker minds, in a blog.
In any event, I have reasons for each of my word choices. “Infinite space” makes more sense when you consider that houses on north-south streets like Clinton have deeper backyards than those on east-west streets. Looking straight out from this one, you don’t see the backs of any other houses. The view stretches all the way to Court St and seems infinite. Next, I don’t like “accessories from around the world.” That could be anything from anywhere, including mass-produced knick-knacks. To me, “ethnic” suggests something colorful, handcrafted, unique. OK, it’s magazine-hack shorthand, but there’s nothing derogatory about it. And no, I didn’t mean the garden’s structure is especially apparent in early spring (it’s equally apparent in late fall and winter). I meant what I said. Thanks anyway for your comment, BG, and for trying to keep me on my writerly toes.
BrooklynGreene,
When we bought the house in 1980, it was divided into 4 floor through
rental apartments. The house on the interior had NO architectural details except for the original staircase. We chose not to add new period details
on the interior but restored the facade as per Landmarks.
I absolutely LOVE this blog feature and I know I’ll be popping over here every Thursday. Jamie’s brownstone is lovely, especially the backyard and striking kitchen.
Beautiful home, congratulations. Lovely to look at. Jamie, I was wondering if you can tell me if your Dialogica cabinet was a custom job? Don’t recall seeing it in their collection before. Also wondering what color you have on the walls in the
(living?) room where the cabinet is. Beautiful utilization of light in that corner of the room! Kind regards.
blm,
The Dialogica was a custom cabinet, however, they have something
similar but I believe lower. The inside was customized for a bar and
audio equipment.
The walls are Benj. Moore November Rain.
Thank you for your kind comments.