DOUBLE UP
A three-metre-wide Brooklyn row house gains two new floors to cater to a busy family of four
When a two-storey row house in New York’s Brooklyn needed an update, its architect owner looked up for inspiration
When a family of four lives in a city as heavily populated as New York, how do they find a nice house, in a good location, with enough space to allow them to breathe, all at the same time? Any average family might struggle, but the Shahanes are anything but average.
Blanca is a jewellery designer and her husband Aniket an architect. When they had twins in 2010, their two-storey, 93-square-metre home no longer worked. “Once they grew out of diapers, there were four humans using one toilet,” says Aniket. “We knew we needed more space, but if we sold it we could only afford to buy the same house.” So, with Aniket acting as architect, they renovated.
A big challenge was the house’s width. Rather than being one of the sprawling brownstones the Brooklyn borough is famous for, this building in the hip South Slope neighbourhood is a traditional row house initially meant as housing for the workers of a local tannery. And it’s only 3.4m wide. Solution? Add new storeys. After two years of planning, they began the process of adding two levels to the house by building a bedroom suite above and digging out the basement to create a new floor.
The narrowness required Aniket’s design to make effective, yet frugal, use of space – every centimetre was important. Precise positioning of walls, doors and new, unusually situated windows were crucial to make the limited space work.
The lower-ground floor now serves as an entry, storage and laundry area. The ground floor is a continuous space, with the living and dining areas, kitchen and
library opening to gardens at the front and back. The first floor contains two kids’ bedrooms along with a double-sink bathroom, while the top floor holds the master suite with a sleeping area, bathroom, balcony and terrace.
The basement is now one of Aniket’s favourite places. “It’s the most useful of all the floors,” he says. “We come home and that’s where we take off our coats, shoes and backpacks. We leave all our city stress in the basement, then we come upstairs and have the entire floor as a living and hang-out space.”
A slender steel staircase repositioned on the south-side party wall connects the house vertically. “The stairs used to be on the opposite wall,” says Aniket. “When it was there, it blocked a window behind it, so by flipping it to the other side we gained that window back and brought more light and air into the living space.”
Throughout, windows were altered to allow for particular furnishings. “As it’s so small, everything has to serve a purpose,” says Aniket. “Each window has a role. We replaced that ‘regained’ window with a much bigger, taller one, which now lights the dining table. On the other side, there’s a window we moved all the way to the ceiling so we could fit an L-shaped couch underneath it. That window serves the living room. In the kitchen, we carved a window on the side wall and that allows us to have a second countertop – we’ve doubled the counter space.”
Materials used are natural and unassuming. The rawness of unfinished steel and character-grade walnut is juxtaposed against the refinement of honed Carrara marble and matt ceramic hex tiles. The result is a home that is larger and livelier – filled with the possibility to do more in a city that requires its residents to be resourceful.
“We’ve lived in New York for 13 years, and it’s just part of living in the city,” says Aniket. “You have to push for space everywhere – on the subway, looking for a parking spot, in the apartments that you live in. Living small is a way of life, and you have to not just accept it, but embrace it. Some people might say it’s a sacrifice, but it’s not. This is what it takes to live in a city like New York, the kind of city we want to live in. Why not embrace that and make something out of it?”