The Insider: Full-on Cobble Hill Townhouse Gut Transforms Unfinished Into Impeccable

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When Michael Ingui, Amy Failla and Joey Chemello of the illustrious architectural firm Baxt Ingui first laid eyes on what would become their new project, the four-story brick row house was, quite simply, “a mess,” Ingui said. Their clients, a couple with two, then three, small children, had recently purchased it in a state of unfinished renovation. “A lot of detail had been removed,” Ingui recalled, “and the second floor was completely gutted down to the joists, with no floor and no sheetrock.”

Baxt Ingui, a 40-year-old firm with offices in lower Manhattan, took on the project as a full-scale gut. “We kept whatever structure we could, replaced the cellar slab, took down an old rear addition that wasn’t structurally sound and built a new one in its existing location” — full width on the garden level and partial width on the parlor floor.

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The team replaced windows throughout, added great expanses of glass at the rear of the parlor and garden levels, and did a complete restoration of the exterior brick facade, including a new cornice and new iron railings for the low stoop, all the way down to new ledges and planter boxes.

Inside, they removed the original staircase and mirrors, restored them and put them back, replaced or restored the hefty moldings and trim, laid new wide-plank floors and created massive new archways as openings between rooms

One of the clients spearheaded the decorating, choosing lively, informal furnishings and playful lighting and wallpaper.

The general contractor was Brooklyn-based Kleen Construction.

Baxt Ingui lengthened the parlor floor window openings to bring them back to their original 19th century appearance and excavated to expand the well in front. The downstairs door “went from a truly secondary entry into a pretty dark cellar to the place where the family enters most of the time,” Ingui said.

The original arched entry doors were “pretty rotten,” Ingui said; they were replaced with newly made ones fit into the salvageable original surround.

Floral wallcoverings by 20th century Swedish designer Josef Frank enliven several spots throughout the house.

Baxt Ingui tucked new millwork storage drawers, topped with marble, into “leftover space” near the front door.

The wide arches between the front hall and parlor living room, and between the parlor and dining room, were made deep enough to nestle a powder room into the corner between them.

Baxt Ingui designed new kitchen millwork of plain sawn white oak. Red Hook-based Temple Woodworks fabricated it.

The breakfast nook is in the all-new addition at the rear of the house.

In keeping with the ‘arches’ motif, a pair of arched pocket doors “provide a pretty open relationship” between the primary bedroom and its en suite bath, Ingui said.

Putting the toilet in a separate WC makes the bathroom “feel like more of a dressing room,” Failla pointed out.

The vanity, purchased from Restoration Hardware, was topped with custom stonework.

Adjacent to the primary bedroom on the second floor is a spacious sitting room/library where the family watches TV.

Three children’s bedrooms, a bath and a laundry room on the top floor surround an open landing used as play space.

A skylight over the stairs was enlarged to bring more natural light to the floor below.

On the ground level, the architects gained a few inches of ceiling height for a home gym by excavating down and digging out a new stair to the backyard.

“The space is pretty subterranean but light-filled,” Ingui said, thanks to the new expanse of glass.

Two small decks top the new rear extension.

The front and rear walls and the front entry hall as they looked before the recent renovation:

[Photos by Adam Kane Macchia]

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The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth look at a notable renovation and/or interior design project by design journalist Cara Greenberg. Find it here every Thursday morning. 

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