PARKSLOPE HISTORICAL BROWNSTONE — Brooklyn, New York | 2025
Brooklyn, New York | 2025
A Park Slope brownstone renovation, built in the 1880s, for a family that had grown into the house — and, in time, outgrown it. The intention behind this Brooklyn interior design project was never to modernize for its own sake, but to make a historic brownstone livable without erasing what made it worth living in. The original fireplaces, decorative moldings, and window proportions were preserved throughout, each retained as part of the home’s architectural character.
What changed instead was the relationship between spaces — the movement between floors, the connection between kitchen and living areas, and the way daylight moves through the house over the course of a day. As an example of architecture-led interior design in Brooklyn, the result holds historic fabric and contemporary life together, without asking either to yield to the other.
Context
Park Slope, Brooklyn: a four-storey brownstone built in the 1880s, the kind of house that accumulates history over time. Original fireplaces, decorative plaster moldings, and staircase details reflect a level of craft that would be costly to replicate today.
A family had lived in the house for years, growing into it and, eventually, beyond it. The layout no longer supported how they actually lived — the flow between floors felt awkward, and the kitchen sat apart from where the family naturally gathered.
Yet the architectural bones of this Park Slope brownstone were exceptional from the start.
That was never in question.
Scope of Work
- Spatial Reorganization & Floor-by-Floor Planning
- Interior Architecture
- Contractor Coordination (LOSAI Studio Architecture)
- Art Integration & Final Styling
Living Room
Design Intent
This Park Slope brownstone renovation began as a reframing more than a conventional renovation. Modernizing for its own sake held no interest, and neither did preserving for nostalgia’s sake — what mattered was locating the line between the two and holding it with precision.
What the house already possessed was significant: the 1880s fireplaces, the original window proportions, and the first-floor cornice details were kept entirely intact, preserved to remain exactly what they are.
What changed was everything around them: the flow between kitchen and living areas, the relationship between floors, and the way natural light moves through the house across the day. The material language of the new interventions complements the original fabric rather than imitating it.
Living Room
The family room continues the project’s modern interior language, pairing Roche Bobois furniture with considered mid-century accents. Designed for daily use, the space balances comfort and refinement through restrained color, integrated storage, and furnishings scaled to align with the townhouse’s proportions.
A custom-designed Maremma book storage wall defines the long elevation — a custom millwork system featuring movable, grilled panels in solid walnut, an oak frame finished in matte lead, and interior paneling lined in dual-tone gray-blue vegan leather, allowing for both flexibility and depth.
Living Room
Kitchen & Dinning
The kitchen and dining areas were conceived as a contemporary intervention, kept visually subordinate to the parlor level. The design prioritized spatial clarity, material restraint, and integration with the historic structure, developed with the project architect.
White and oak surfaces, refined junctions, and large-format porcelain tile form a calm backdrop. Expansive glazing and skylights bring daylight deep into the plan, connecting interior and garden.
The dining area is anchored by the Hart table — a single twelve-foot slab of honed black granite with integrated wine storage, designed by the studio — and the Arielle bench, upholstered in Josef Frank’s Anakreon textile (circa 1938).
Kitchen & Dinning
Art Curation
The art program was developed as an integral component of the interior architecture, in close collaboration with the client. The collection includes Cats by Andy Warhol and American Spirit by Roe Ethridge, both from the studio’s private collection, alongside select ceramic works by Jessica Capone.
Each piece is positioned to punctuate space, reinforce spatial rhythm, and establish moments of focus without overwhelming the historic framework.
Art Curation
Family Room
The family room continues the project’s modern interior language, pairing Roche Bobois furniture with considered mid-century accents.
Designed for daily use, the space balances comfort and refinement through restrained color, integrated storage, and furnishings scaled to align with the townhouse’s proportions.
Night Zone
Primary Challenge
The palette was the hardest decision.
An 1880s brownstone has its own material logic —
warm brick, dark wood, deep moldings. Everything
new had to work with that or deliberately against it.
No neutral ground.
Warm whites that don’t fight the original woodwork.
Earthy mid-tones that hold the rooms without
darkening them. Stronger color brought in through
art and textiles — energy without disruption.
Furniture scale was a constant negotiation.
High ceilings, generous rooms — but floor plates
that don’t always deliver what they promise once
the fireplace, doors, and circulation are accounted for.
Every piece planned to the centimeter.
The custom millwork had to feel like it belonged to the house. Not installed into it.
Living Room
Methodology
Living Room
PROJECT TEAM
Interior Design
Natasa Tuohy Studio
Architecture
LOSAI Studio Architecture
Location
Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York
Year Completed
2025
Project Type
Single-Family Residential Renovation
Scope
Interior Architecture · Spatial Reorganization ·
Historic Preservation · Custom Millwork · FF&E ·
Art Integration · Construction Administration
Building Age
c. 1880s — Park Slope Historic District, Brooklyn
