Cobble Hill Italianate, No. 1

Beneath decades of structural decline, our clients recognized something worth saving—five stories of generous Italianate proportions in one of Brooklyn's most coveted neighborhoods. Rather than museum-quality restoration, they sought to capture the spirit of 19th-century Brooklyn living within a layout suited for family life today.

We reimagined the interior around modern social patterns while respecting the home's formal bones. A new double parlor creates a generous space for entertaining, connected through a paneled library to a formal dining room—a sequence that honors 19th-century customs while serving today's more relaxed entertaining style. Throughout the house, kitchen cabinetry, built-in bookshelves, and pocket doors restore the level of crafted detail that distinguished the original home. The exterior required complete facade reconstruction, with new cornices, lintels, and sills returning the building to its original streetscape presence.

What lay beneath decades of decline was exactly what the clients recognized from the start—a gracious Brooklyn home whose formal bones needed a new chapter.