Brooklyn Heights Anglo-Italianate, No. 2

This 1850 Anglo-Italianate rowhouse in Brooklyn Heights came with an honest brief: make an undersized home feel grander without pretending it was something it wasn’t. The clients—a family of five—understood their home’s constraints and were willing to embrace them. The challenge lay in working with, not against, the compact proportions.

The transformation began with a simple but significant move: relocating the kitchen from the garden level to the rear of the parlor floor. This design decision allowed light from the large, street-facing windows to flow through the parlor floor into the new kitchen at the rear. A new large window facing the garden reflects light from a neighbor’s wall, brightening the home.

The garden level was then reconfigured into two symmetrical, intimate rooms—a dark green den that connects to the courtyard and a formal dining room with a hand-painted mural of Cape Cod dunes. The courtyard, bounded by masonry walls, centers around a small fountain whose gentle sound reverberates through the kitchen above and den below.

The upper floors became the family’s private spaces: offices for both parents, bedrooms for each child, and a roof terrace accessed through a dayliter hatch that brings light down through the home’s stairwell.