FOR THE FIRST OF MY NEW SERIES OF ‘THE INSIDER’ columns on Brownstoner.com, the colossal Brooklyn real-estate website, I chose a house I wouldn’t mind moving into myself: a gut-renovated Bed-Stuy row house by architects Robinson + Grisaru for a pair of design-minded individuals. Love the exposed joists painted white (seems to be a trend; there will be more of those in upcoming weeks). Look for ‘The Insider’ on Brownstoner every Thursday at 11AM. To read more about the house above, go here.
SUPER BROWNSTONE in my column today on Brownstoner: an 1892 house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, dripping with original woodwork and renovated in a somewhat quirky way. The master bedroom has pride of place in the front parlor; the living room is relegated to downstairs. One result: a fabulous master bedroom! Furnishings are modern and spare, which nicely sets off all the Victorian detail.
Go here to read all about it.
A 500-SQUARE-FOOT VEGETABLE GARDEN six stories above Brooklyn is a whole lot of work, but Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader love all of it — even lugging jugs of water up stairs and waking at 6AM to pollinate pumpkin blossoms with Q-tips when necessary — and it provides all the produce they can possibly eat.
Read the whole tale and see lots more photos in The Outsider, my Sunday garden column for Brownstoner.com. You’ll find it right here.
I REALLY LOVE the house featured today on my latest “Insider” post for Brownstoner. Of course, everything I write up has something to recommend it, but some I respond to more than others — the colorful, more ‘bohemian’ ones, I suppose you could say.
The house itself is an 1893 detail-laden, sandstone-colored house on a pretty block in rapidly gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant. The carved woodwork and mantels are over-the-top in grand High Victorian fashion, but the furnishings — mostly inherited antiques, with a smattering of 20th century modern classics — are deployed in such a spare, uncluttered way, the whole thing has a modern feel.
I went way overboard on this one, using two dozen photos. To see them all, click right here, right now.
ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS of last Saturday’s Bedford-Stuyvesant House Tour (the 33rd annual!) was the impressive level of craft in the bay-windowed 1890s limestone where Christiaan Bunce and his wife Jules Gim recently completed a gut rehab. No surprise, as Christiaan is a principal of Khouri Guzman Bunce Limited (KGB), a multi-disciplinary firm whose work ranges from 20,000-square-foot from-the-ground-up Hamptons homes to urban interior renovations and modern furniture design.
Dig those stunning zig-zag patterned floors, above, made of alternating strips of white oak and walnut and requiring visitors to put on those silly historic-house booties. Christiaan and Jules bought the building 3-1/2 years ago and recently completed something between a renovation and restoration on all four floors, the lower duplex that is their home and two rental apartments above. “The house was really rough, with bad water damage, and lots of detail had been stripped,” Christian says. So he re-created it, even making silicone molds of existing cornices and other architectural details, and casting them in plaster.
To read more, and see lots more photos, head right on over here.
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