This Minimalist New York Apartment Will Make You Want to Customize Everything
Lindsey Mather
Updated
Sometimes, you need to start from scratch. Architect and designer Elizabeth Roberts preserved the skeleton of this Brooklyn duplex—it's tucked inside the bottom two floors of a Federal-style townhouse on a tree-lined street—but everything else, and we mean everything, is brand-new. On the parlor level, Roberts ripped out all the existing interior walls and opened up the back of the apartment with an airy expanse of white steel-and-glass windows and doors. All of the behind-the-scenes stuff—the heating, cooling, electrical, and plumbing—is new. And while the white oak chevron floors and elegant crown and base moldings might look like they've always been there, those too are fresh additions. Downstairs, Roberts relocated all of the rooms to make the most of the space, squeezing in two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The 1,160-square-foot home was essentially a blank slate.
The client, a young family that grew from three to four during the renovation, envisioned open, clean interiors, but left the details up to Roberts. "We did things we hadn’t done before, it was a real exploration," she says. In the living room and bathrooms, she played with tadelakt, a waterproof plaster material applied using a traditional, labor-intensive Moroccan technique. "It has tactile, luminescent properties that make it feel tailored to each individual space," she notes. The wide-open kitchen presented a challenge: every aspect could be viewed from all angles; there were no walls to hide behind. So, Roberts got creative. "We embedded the marble backsplash into the walls instead of applying it to the walls; we added plaster and sheetrock around it," she says. "The cabinets are furniture-like; they're really complete on all sides." Every detail was assessed with the ultimate care, down to the design of the outlets.
This Minimalist New York Apartment Will Make You Want to Customize Everything
Nothing separates the kitchen from the living room, so Roberts stuck with a light color palette to ensure the spaces flow easily. The vintage pendant light by Hans-Agne Jakobsson steals the show. "The client is a theatrical costume designer and I think she couldn't resist the fringe!" says Gould.
For the minimalist fireplace mantel, Roberts found a skilled craftsman to apply tadelakt, a waterproof plaster, by hand in the Moroccan tradition. "The cost was comparable to tile but it gave it such a unique look," she says.
"The kitchen cabinets were custom and we spent a lot of time thinking about how they would be viewed from all angles," says Roberts. Embedded directly into the wall, the marble backsplash doesn't bump out clumsily from the wall and the cabinets on the right side were built to resemble a tall armoire. In the middle, Gould paired Hans J. Wegner wishbone chairs with a slim Blu Dot table. "The curves of the chairs just work so well with the angularity of the table," she says. Above hangs a white metal light fixture by Lambert & Fils.
Roberts intentionally designed shallow upper cabinets that open from the bottom for easy access. "Once you open them, they remain open until you shut them, and when they’re shut, they’re completely out of the way."
Look closely and you'll see a drain board etched right into the marble countertop. Set a few dripping dishes on top and the water will drain right into the sink, says Roberts. It's a simple customization you can request through your marble fabricator.
If you weren't looking for them, you wouldn't notice the ultra-subtle Boffi outlets embedded in the backsplash—and that's the point.
The steel and glass doors in the serene downstairs master bedroom are a simpler version of the ones on the parlor level. "They have that really thin profile to give you as much glass as possible," says Roberts. Save for the door handles, all of the hardware matches the metal exactly. "It goes along with the minimalist, light, white feel."
Like the fireplace, the master bathroom walls are covered in tadelakt. "It’s a nice, seamless way to go from the shower to the remainder of the bathroom without all the joints and demarcations a tile pattern often has," says Roberts. Plus, "it makes the bathroom feel larger because you don’t have that busy geometry." A custom floating vanity with deep drawers ekes the most storage space possible out of the tight corner. Above, two Apparatus Trapeze sconces frame a built-in medicine cabinet.
Roberts had fun with the kids' bathroom, covering it floor-to-ceiling in graphic Popham Design Brasilia tiles. "It has no windows, so the client wanted something that was fun and bright," she says. All of the fixtures play off of the pattern: the Jasper Morrison for Flos Glo-Ball sconce is the same diameter as the half-moons and the faucets are a white retro style from Fantini.
Then came the furnishings. "Because the architectural materials were all new, we felt it was important to bring in some elements that had natural patina," says the interior designer on the project, Jessica Gould. There are woven Hans J. Wegner wishbone chairs, jewelry-like brass drawer pulls in the kitchen, and a vintage rug in the living room, but the pièce de résistance is the vintage Hans-Agne Jakobsson light fixture suspended above it with its layers of flouncy silk fringe. "We wanted the overall feel to be minimal, but tactile and warm, and not at all precious," Gould explains. You know it's a great home when even little kids appreciate it. Gould remembers, "The client purchased one of the bentwood stools and then had to purchase a second because their two daughters were playing with it and fighting over it!"
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