Before & After: This Accessible Catskills Retreat Brings Together Three Generations of Family

Kelly Dawson
·1 min read

Designer Fauzia Khanani of Studio For revises a ’70s ranch house to provide independence for the homeowners’ daughter, who uses a wheelchair.

The renovation reconfigured the kitchen to include a peninsula, which has a secondary level for the owners' wheelchair-using daughter.
The renovation reconfigured the kitchen to include a peninsula, which has a secondary level for the owners' wheelchair-using daughter.

A little more than 20 years ago, Fauzia Khanani was seated next to Julie Kim in their first graduate school architecture class at Berkeley. "Our last names have the same first letter, and it was assigned seating," Khanani recalls. After graduating, they both stayed on the West Coast for a while and then, for different reasons, moved east. "I went back to New York a couple of years later, and she and her family moved here during the pandemic, to be closer to her relatives," she says.

By then, Julie had met and married Sean, who works as a software engineer, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. "Going from a single-family home in California that had a yard to a small apartment without one was a tough transition for their family," says Khanani, who founded the firm Studio For. "They started looking for a second property upstate, and since my firm has done a lot of projects in the Hudson Valley, Julie called me to help."

Before: Exterior 

The home was originally built in 1975 and needed a lot of updates.
The home was originally built in 1975 and needed a lot of updates.
The owners liked that much of the home was on one level, and overlooked a lot of land.
The owners liked that much of the home was on one level, and overlooked a lot of land.

After: Exterior 

The new exterior was kept dark, but the front door was given a punch of color.
The new exterior was kept dark, but the front door was given a punch of color.

See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: This Accessible Catskills Retreat Brings Together Three Generations of Family
Related stories: