Peek Inside A Polished Brooklyn Townhome With Historic Charm

2024 Best of Year Winner for Domestic Small City House

Behind its meticulously restored, historic facade, the 3,500-square-foot town house in Brooklyn, New York, by Brent Buck Architects has been transformed, with generously proportioned interiors connected by a sculptural, polished-plaster staircase that ascends to a rooftop sunroom offering panoramic Williamsburg views. Heart-pine beams reclaimed from a neighboring 19th-century building are central to the residence’s feel and function. With nail holes, discoloration, and checking left intact, the joists were reused as structural members or milled into flooring, decking, and window components that appear throughout, adding character and a sense of the past to the contemporary spaces. Other defining materials include domestic marble in the kitchen and bathrooms and, most strikingly, brass, which forms a custom freestanding tub that’s the centerpiece in the main bedroom.

PROJECT TEAM: BRENT BUCK; WILLIAM GREGORY; MOLLY ALLFATHER; DOUG BACON.