A Brooklyn Heights Co-Op Renovation Driven by Scandinavian Simplicity

Lucky were the longtime owners of a Brooklyn Heights co-op to find the adjacent unit for sale. Luckier still, perhaps, were the couple to meet Christine Stucker and James Veal, cofounders of Stewart-Schäfer. The designers convinced the homeowners that conjoining the two apartments was not only feasible but also financially viable. The merge would enhance both real estate value and quality of life for the family, a couple in the film industry with two pre-teen children.  

Straightforward and easy enough—at least, that’s how the endeavor first seemed. The newly purchased apartment resembled a disheveled college dorm, complete with a stage and an elevated level change. Stucker and Veal, who are married, intended to raze dividing walls and create a seamless segue between the clients’ long-time home and the addition, which was to be transformed into a luxurious master suite. Or so they thought.  

Stewart-Schäfer Enhances This Brooklyn Heights Co-Op

The eight-story landmark structure with 72 residences was built in 1899. “You can only imagine what we found opening up walls,” says Veal with a laugh. This required a gut renovation for the addition and extensive refurbishing for the main space. “We had to resurface everything,” Stucker adds.

While the designers maintained the basic organization with living areas up front and children’s bedrooms in the back, they seized the opportunity to expand and completely redesign the kitchen and give it a generous pantry.

Tour This Kitchen With a Generous Pantry

Ceilings received a structural change, too. In the original apartment’s footprint, the designers lowered the ceiling from 19 to 17 feet and covered the soffits for a clean plane. They also cleaned up the 10-foot-high expanse in the new space. All told, they designed a plan for 3,000 square feet comprising four bedrooms and four baths. 

Neutral Tones & Natural Materials Give This Home A Clean Feeling

The designers embraced two guidelines for furnishings in the new expanded unit. One was a Scandinavian aesthetic favored by the clients, “easy and trusting,” as described by Stucker. “We kept things simple and clean, understated with a premium feeling,” Veal notes. Neutral tones and natural materials, primarily rift-cut white oak, dominate.

The second guideline was storage space—and plenty of it. “I was a New Yorker for 20 years,” says Stucker, who previously lived in Brooklyn and now is in Easton, Connecticut. “I dreamed of closets.”

The result was copious millwork, a hallmark of a Stewart-Schäfer design. They incorporated storage for the kitchen in cabinets beneath a 17-foot-long Taj Mahal marble-topped counter and the pantry. As for the living area, it received a display wall with shelving and cabinets. In the primary suite, two massive blocks for built-in closets flank the bed, and an integrally lit display wall at its entry—which also happens to be the connecting point of the old and new spaces—shows books, objects, and ceramics. There’s a similar wall in the son’s room for his Lego creations and action figures. Even the stairway has built-in cabinets at its base, à la tansu steps.

Storage Space Is the Name of the Game

For freestanding pieces, Stucker and Veal got lucky at Design Within Reach. They scored the dining table, its mid-century Danish 39 chairs, bar stool, and Warren Platner coffee table. Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole armchair in a creamy bouclé follows in a similar classic vein, while the bedroom chair by Børge Mogensen is a vintage find.

The Stewart-Schäfer commission extended to curating the owners’ art collection, to which Stucker added a piece of her own, an oil painting created for the large open wall in the living room. It’s nameless, as are all her paintings.

Stewart-Schäfer Nods to Scandinavian Design in This Home