architecture and interiors by: OSSO Architecture
general contractor and millwork by: KF Restoration
landscape by: Hannah Edmunds Gardens
photography by: Erik Bernstein
via: Brownstoner
Park Slope, Brooklyn
OSSO Architecture's Park Slope renovation began as a family expansion and became a structural rescue. The turn-of-the-20th-century brownstone had settled dramatically from front to back because it sat above a 25-foot-deep pit of coal ash. Before the architects could add living space, the house had to be stabilized with 32 helical piles driven 40 feet below the existing foundation walls.
That engineering decision shaped the architectural one. The renovation went down to the shell, leaving the front facade and party walls standing while the interior was rebuilt around a new oak stair. On the lower flights, solid oak risers, treads, spindles, and a hand-carved rail make the stair feel anchored in the townhouse tradition. Higher up, the same rail continues through steel balusters and open risers, becoming lighter as it approaches the roof.
The material brief is unusually consistent: oak floors over radiant heat, oak windows and sills, vertical-grain oak closets, and custom millwork by KF Restoration. On the parlor level, a wall of cabinetry hides a powder room with a Calacatta lilac marble sink, while the kitchen turns toward a new glass rear wall with a marble-topped island, a blue Blue Star range, brass hardware, and glass pendants by Pablo Glass.
The new five-story arrangement gives the family guest space and storage at garden level, daily living on the main floor, a primary suite and family room above, kids' bedrooms and an office on the third floor, and a roughly 400-square-foot penthouse at the roof. That top room is the project's clearest reward for all the hidden work below: a compact living space with a sink, beverage fridge, dishwasher, oak cabinetry, and planted terraces on both sides.
The exterior is equally explicit about what changed. OSSO replaced the failing non-original brick stoop with bluestone treads, open risers, and a steel railing, restored the original front doors in Benjamin Moore's Exotic Purple, and rebuilt the rear facade in stucco with Pella Alu-clad windows and aluminum spandrel panels over the structural steel. It is a renovation where the calmness of the finished rooms depends on deep, visible craft and a great deal of invisible load-bearing work.
Tags: Brooklyn, Park Slope, Brownstone, Townhouse, Renovation, OSSO Architecture
