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Brooklyn-based Barker Architecture Office renovated a landmarked, four-story brownstone in Clinton Hill for a couple moving from Tribeca. The design preserves surviving historic features while adding saturated colors, custom furnishings and spaces arranged around the owners’ art collection and daily routines.
Brooklyn-based Barker Architecture Office (BAAO) has renovated a landmarked 19th-century brownstone in Clinton Hill, reshaping the four-story home for an empty-nester couple who moved from Tribeca. The project pairs surviving architectural details with vivid colors, custom finishes and contemporary art, responding to a house that had previously been divided into short-term rentals.
According to Design Milk’s report, the homeowners wanted more than an update to a period property: they sought a setting for a collection of midcentury furniture and contemporary art, with a warmer and more expressive palette. BAAO retained the building’s few surviving ornamental elements and placed them alongside clean-lined modern additions. The report describes the approach as selective, rather than an attempt to recreate a fully intact historic interior.
Color introduces the design at the entrance. Olive front doors open to a terracotta vestibule, with a yellow staircase and red runner visible beyond. On the parlor floor, diagonal white-oak boards recall historic parquet patterns. Original plaster crown molding remains in the living room, framing a working fireplace finished in textured porcelain tile; a Richard Tuttle chandelier hangs from a restored plaster rosette.
The kitchen wraps around the room’s perimeter, with custom white-oak cabinets, honed soapstone counters and a veined lilac-marble backsplash. Instead of an island, BAAO placed a dining table beneath vintage aluminum pendants. Downstairs, a bright family room opens onto the garden, while a dark-paneled library offers a contrasting, quieter space. The upper floors include a primary suite in russet, ochre and moss green, and three bedrooms arranged around a skylit lounge for the couple’s adult children.
A New Interior for a Landmark Home
The renovation shows how a historic home can be adapted to a particular household without relying on a full period-style restoration. The report says the building had lost much of its original ornamentation during its use as short-term rentals. BAAO’s response was to preserve the features that remained and make the new work legible as contemporary, rather than presenting the interior as untouched history.
For the owners, the layout and finishes also serve practical routines: a central dining table makes the kitchen a gathering space, the garden level separates family activity from a reading retreat, and the top-floor lounge connects bedrooms used by visiting adult children. Art, furniture and daily use are treated as part of the design brief, not as decoration added after the renovation.
The project is a reported residential design story, not a public policy announcement or a measure of broader housing conditions. Its relevance lies in the specific example it offers of adapting a landmarked brownstone for contemporary living while retaining surviving historic fabric.
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From Short-Term Rentals to Home
The couple left a Tribeca townhouse for a four-story house in Clinton Hill, a Brooklyn neighborhood with historic brownstones. The source describes the property as landmarked and dating to the 19th century. Before the renovation, it had been divided into short-term rentals, a change that, according to Design Milk, removed much of its original ornamentation.
BAAO worked with the homeowners on furniture choices and the placement of their art across the house. The collection includes works by Alfred Stieglitz, Inez Nathaniel Walker and Amy Sillman, as well as work by tattoo artist Stoney St. Clair. Other named design elements include a hand-painted landscape mural in the primary bedroom, blue-green zellige tile in the bathroom and a custom walnut bookshelf in the library.
Project Details Not Reported
The source does not provide the renovation’s cost, construction timeline or completion date. It also does not detail the specific landmark approvals, permits or preservation requirements involved. The report describes the property as landmarked, but does not identify the relevant review body or explain which interventions required approval.
There is no direct statement from the homeowners or a quoted interview with BAAO in the supplied report material. Descriptions of the design goals and effects, including the claim that the lighting environment was tailored to the couple’s routines, are presented through the design coverage rather than supported by published performance measures. The project’s wider effect on preservation practice or neighborhood housing is not established by the source.
No Further Milestone Listed
The report presents the renovation as a completed residential project and does not identify a forthcoming construction phase, public opening or other next milestone. Further details about the timeline, approvals and homeowners’ experience would require additional reporting or statements from BAAO and the owners. For now, the documented development is the completed redesign and its arrangement of historic remnants, contemporary finishes, art and family spaces.
Key Questions
Where is the renovated brownstone?
It is in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Design Milk describes it as a landmarked 19th-century brownstone.
Who designed the renovation?
The project was designed by Barker Architecture Office (BAAO), a Brooklyn-based architecture practice, according to the report.
What was the house used for before the renovation?
The building had been divided into short-term rentals. Design Milk says that use stripped away much of the home’s original ornamentation.
Which historic features were retained?
The report identifies surviving architectural elements including plaster crown molding and a plaster ceiling rosette. It does not provide a full preservation inventory.
What information about the project has not been published?
The supplied report does not state the renovation cost, construction dates or approval process. It also does not name a next project milestone.
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