Infacet a 70s-Inspired Brooklyn Brownstone by Glam Studio

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Historical houses are like time machines—that’s why Aubrey Ament and Will Glaser of Brooklyn-based design agency Glam Studio love them. “There’s this record of how people lived in these spaces across eras, and an architectural framing of those eras over time,” says Ament. “If you had multiple generations of one family living in a house for 100 years, you’d see time layering [through] all of those different styles.” So it was on the parlor flooring of a 140-year-old brownstone in Brooklyn’s historic Clinton Hill neighborhood, which the design duo had been contracted to refresh whereas enhancing the movement of the areas.

Though many authentic particulars remained intact—just like the rosette-studded molding within the kitchen’s door frames, the stained-glass panels in the lounge, and the mosaic-tiled flooring within the entry vestibule—the rooms had been modernized with early aughts elaborations like cove ceiling lighting and ebony-stained wooden flooring. The mixture appeared extra chilly and disjointed than harmonious.

“It reminded me of a commercial lobby or, like, a weird Airbnb,” says Glaser.

Yet the potential was apparent. “We felt like we had a lot to play with and wanted to bring the house back to life,” says Ament, referencing how the home has endured by means of the Prewar interval, the Art Deco period, after which into the glam of the Seventies and past.

To maximize circulation and brightness, the pair widened the opening between the entry corridor and adjoining residing and eating rooms. Shortening one wall of the slender front room to take action finally made it really feel extra spacious—and furnishings much less crowded. They put in herringbone white oak flooring, a staple of old-world flats, and stripped and refinished the millwork and molding all through, embracing the various wooden species that have been included over time: a pocket door stays mahogany on one facet, oak on the opposite, and the treads and railing of the staircase coordinate slightly than match. “That kind of wabi-sabi is good,” says Glaser. “We leaned into it.” 

In the kitchen, the Glam Studio crew elevated storage with two customized wall niches, refinished the ornamental hearth, and transformed a minor corridor closet right into a completed pantry that leads—by means of an arched, fluted glass doorway—to a burgundy lime-washed powder room. Another authentic hearth, beforehand coated in dated tile and a mirrored mantel, anchors the adjoining residing and eating areas. The crew stripped the 2000s particulars and acquired it working once more; now the household can have dinners in entrance of a wood-burning fireplace and a period-appropriate, far much less imposing marble mantel.

As with most historic renovation tasks, peeling again the present layers revealed loads of surprises from the earlier reinvention. Among them? Nearly two inches of poured concrete hidden beneath the floorboards, which added pointless weight to the home’s basis and wanted to be eliminated earlier than the ground could possibly be re-leveled.

And earlier than the pair may restore the principle hearth, they needed to construct again the chimney stack that had been eliminated on the fourth flooring—however solely the fourth flooring. Ament says, “I don’t know who made that decision or why, but discovering those quirky moments is just part of the charm of working with old houses.”

With the useful parts in place, Ament and Glaser set to work creating an easy-going class that will enable the householders to calm down as a household or welcome pals on a whim. Inspired by tender rose, ochre, and mauve within the vestibule’s mosaic-tiled flooring—in addition to the low-fi haze of photographer Dinanda Nooney’s black-and-white photographs of a bygone Brooklyn—the pair wove in considerate Deco particulars: reeded pedestal legs on the eating desk, frosted globes of a classic Italian chandelier in the lounge. A blonde wooden, curvaceous olive-green velvet couch in the lounge lends a Seventies-inspired coastal-California vibe.

“There was a beautiful little cadence of style that lent itself to this warm, glamorous, inviting design,” Ament says. “There’s this enveloping that happens visually with all the curves.”

The outcome feels dreamy but grounded, of a time however fully fashionable, and honors the home’s previous as a lot as its current with tactile depth and layered finishes. “It’s fun to take motifs and reframe them through another idea,” says Ament. “Renovations shouldn’t be a completely new thing. They should build off the existing design in a meaningful way.”