Traditional Townhouse

Cobble Hill Queen Anne

This unique Queen Anne brownstone (one of only a few in the neighborhood) serves as the epicenter of family gatherings for three generations. The clients came to us looking to adapt the narrow home to better suit their family's lifestyle, providing ample space for family engagement and comfortable spaces for their frequent guests.

The home is atypical in that it has windows on three sides of the property due to its L-shape and proximity to the street corner. This luxury, however, comes at a cost: the spaces at the middle and rear of the building only span about eleven and a half feet in width. In the public spaces at the parlor and cellar floors, careful planning was required to accommodate the narrow width and allow the spaces to feel as open as possible.

The previous kitchen, a room considered the heart of the home for this family, was sandwiched next to the cellar stair. It lacked adequate counter space, full size appliances, and a central focus on the parlor floor.

We proposed flipping the kitchen and dining room locations and combining the separate spaces into one larger, eat-in kitchen. This literally brought the kitchen to the center of the home, away from the cellar stair, and situated the dining table within the kitchen, along the length of the stair at the rear of the house.

While the clients were excited about this reorganization, they did not want to feel as if the kitchen was on display from the moment one enters the home. They wanted to maintain the integrity and individuality of the parlor living room. Through careful detailing and millwork decisions, we were able accomplish this goal, creating visual and physical separation between the spaces.

On the parlor floor, the stair to the upper floors lives in a common location, upon entry from the street, at the widest part of the home. However, the connection between the parlor and cellar was tucked away at the rear corner in the narrow part of the house, weighing down the adjacent rooms and negatively affecting the use of those spaces.

Although we kept the cellar stair in the same location and reorganized spaces around it, we decided to flip its direction so that it landed at the rear cellar wall. This provides a more fluid path of circulation from the parlor and ended the stair in a better place for the new cellar layout. Flipping the staircase also provided a perfect space for a wet bar with artwork by Brooklyn-based Louis Venturelli and toy storage underneath the stairs.

On the cellar level, we strove to bring the couple's design sensibilities into the space, while allowing it to function as a playroom for their grandchildren and the family's main TV room.

Exposing the joists allowed us to raise the ceiling height, making the space feel spacious and filled with natural light. We retained an original stove, built locally in the 1800s, to acknowledge the home's history.

At the front of the cellar, we gave the existing mechanical room a facelift, transforming the space from a dark, uninviting room to a welcoming entryway, with all mechanical systems hidden behind generous millwork.

On the more private upper floors of the home, constraints due to the home's narrowness were easier to accommodate. The upper floors provide a cozy and peaceful retreat for both the family and their frequent guests. Light is brought into the upper levels in many ways, from a skylight in the primary bathroom to a large wall of glass in the top floor hallway.