New Brooklyn Resource: Reclaimed Home

A TRIP TO THE NEW CROWN HEIGHTS STORE, Reclaimed Home, could just save you a longer trip upstate. The architectural salvage and secondhand furniture on offer here are reminiscent of what you might find while foraging at the Stormville flea market in Putnam County, or in a Catskills antique store.

The spacious shop, which opened last weekend at 945 Carroll Street, in a former tattoo parlor a block from the 1000 Washington Avenue entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is a joint project of two longtime friends, top — Phyllis Bobb, a veteran flea market vendor who formerly owned a Victorian house in Beacon, N.Y. (its renovation is fully documented on her 7-year-old blog), and fine-arts painter Emilia DeVitis.

The repurposed pieces in the store, however — a decorative 19th century radiator grille used as the top of a side table, for instance, or a 1920s ‘waterfall’ dresser on wooden wheels, given new pizzazz with a painted red chevron design, are unique in all the world. Prices are accessible, and the info on the price tags exhaustive and painfully honest — a cast-iron chandelier is marked “Not vintage,” a piece in mid-paint job “Not finished yet.”

 

Check out the website, which displays many of the pieces for sale in the shop, with detailed descriptions and prices, or better yet, go to the store. It’s open five days (Wednesday-Friday 9-5; Saturday and Sunday 10-6, Monday and Tuesday by appointment).

 

 

High-End Philly Salvage

I WAS DOWN IN PHILADELPHIA Sunday, helping my son and his girlfriend tear up floorboards at the 1870s Fishtown row house they bought last June. But first, by way of procrastination, we had to have breakfast and check out the new digs of an architectural salvage company in Northern Liberties called Provenance.

The place is ginormous and most impressive. There’s lots here for fans of the trendy Steampunk/early industrial aesthetic. They have numerous antique flooring options, from maple strips salvaged from a bowling alley to cypress “sink lumber,” i.e. logs that fell off the barge at a bend in the river, and were submerged for years before being brought to the surface and resuscitated, ready for use.

My only disappointment is that prices seem on a par with New York’s. So no bargains for making the trip, but plenty of intriguing inventory.

Vintage pedestal sinks, about $400.

Tall turn-of-the-century corner cupboard in great condition, $800.

Discovering More of Philadelphia

I LOVE GOING WHERE I’VE NEVER BEEN BEFORE, particularly when it’s to older neighborhoods as lovely and green as Philadelphia’s Mt. Airy. The 19th century houses, many made of stone, have front porches and deep yards — somewhat Southern in feeling, like nothing you would see in New York.

I was there Sunday to visit several private gardens which were open to public view as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, and found they lived up to their billing as artful and ‘delightfully personal.’

My favorite of Sunday’s gardens was Lindsay Weightman’s and Hani Zaki’s, all pics above, a testament to all one can do in shady urban space, with a grape arbor, water pots, and multi-level decking. An atmospheric stone ‘outdoor room,’ below, is outfitted with a dining table, chandeliers, and a pizza oven.

Exotic artifacts and architectural salvage, collected by the homeowners on their travels, are incorporated into the garden’s structure.

I also enjoyed the long, narrow (18’x150′)  backyard of Eric Sternfels, above, behind an 1840s trinity house. The unpromising space manages to be surprising and harmonious, with mature perennials arranged along a serpentine brick path that draws you along to the finish line. Sternfels’ own whimsical sculptures, below, hang  at intervals along the way.

We had lunch at the High Point Cafe, where they make crepes to order, imagining how pleasant it must be to live in such a civilized, garden-loving part of town.

Old Doors and Windows, Cheap

I’M UPSTATE THIS WEEKEND and made it my business to check out the architectural salvage warehouse operated by the Historic Albany Foundation.

My plan is to replace the screens on my porch with glass to create a year-round sun room, much like my friends Fran and Bob did at their house in Columbia County, N.Y., below.

Bob got the windows at the Historic Albany Foundation — actually they’re mostly French doors — and in just one day, with the help of a carpenter, transformed their screened porch to a glassed-in conservatory.

Arriving late on a rainy Friday, with just half an hour to go before closing, I didn’t have time to root through thousands of square feet of panel doors, multi-paned windows, moldings, sinks and tubs, hardware, mantels, lighting fixtures, etc., but I didn’t see enough of any one kind of window to make the matched set of seven I need.

Still, it’s a great place to know about, and everything is amazingly cheap (old panel doors in good condition for $40, for example).

Albany is not an unpleasant city in which to spend some time. It has a good art museum, a few streets lined with 19th century row houses that rival Brooklyn Heights for beauty, and on Lark, several of the kind of cozy, locally-owned coffee shops that East Hampton ought to have but doesn’t.

Photos by Zoë Greenberg

1 Hour in Red Hook, N.Y.

I’m always amazed at how much there is to see when an old-house (and barn) fanatic really looks.  All these pictures were taken Wednesday in the course of an hour’s drive around the Dutchess County town of Red Hook.

Click on any image to enlarge and get a description.