Sketch Pad: Growing Up, Not Out, in Brooklyn

ONE way to get to the small carriage house in back is through the mansion in front.

The big house with the mansard roof, set back from Washington Avenue, was once one of the most stylish houses in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, but now it looks closer to a ruin. Water stains from windows left open are everywhere, floors have buckled, and mold has set in.

Campion Platt, a Manhattan architect and interior designer, pulled up in his black leather-lined Range Rover, navigated the overgrown circular driveway, then walked through the grand house, snapped some pictures and quickly headed out the back door into the yard.

A stately old maple tree stands about halfway between the house and its two carriage houses — one bigger than the other. He walked into the smaller one, currently for sale for $950,000.

The whole package — both carriage houses and the mansion — is for sale for $6.1 million. The larger, 30-foot-wide carriage house is priced separately, at $1.65 million, and the grand brownstone house is $3.5 million.

But it was the smaller building that Mr. Platt, who was recently listed among Architectural Digest’s 100 most influential architects and designers, had chosen to remodel — at least on paper.

“This is the most reasonable in terms of costs,” he said.

“The cost of getting the mansion back to its original splendor would be astronomical, and it’s such a landmark, it should be rigorously restored. There is no place to build up, nowhere near the kind of latitude allowed with the carriage house. This is a cleaner, clearer space.”

The attached carriage houses front on Hall Street, opposite some handsome red brick and brownstone academic buildings at Pratt Institute and a large grassy sculpture park. Across an empty lot to the side, toward Washington Avenue, a church spire is visible, making this an extraordinary urban setting.

Both carriage houses share the same embellishments: tall fluted brick panels and some terra-cotta rosettes inset across the facade between the first and second floors — and, of course, the wide openings for carriages.

After a quick trip through the smaller carriage house — a rudimentary kitchen downstairs and enough space for two cars — up the fairly recent diamond-plate and tubular steel staircase and through the scantily partitioned upstairs, Mr. Platt went outside and looked back at the side of the building.

“If we just have the two stories, there’s not a lot to be done,” he said. “But the details have a certain verticality, and the openings are slender. I hope we can build up.”

A week later, sitting in his Midtown Manhattan office, Mr. Platt shuffled his drawings, a combination of computer renderings and pencil sketches. A large tin of colored pencils stood open on the desk.

Under zoning regulations, the carriage house’s volume and lot size would permit three more stories, the architect said. Although the carriage house is in a historic district, he added, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission often looks kindly on additions if they are deemed contextual and well done.

“We would keep the original structure,” he said, as if he were making his case before the commission. “We’re restoring the rosette medallions. The only thing we’ve changed is to replace a first-floor window with a first-floor door and made the garage door more translucent, in keeping with the new windows we’ve created for the upstairs.”

Inside, the building would be gutted — there are no original features left to save — and a basement would be excavated, for several reasons.

“The basement would be dug out for the steel structure you’d need to support the upper three stories,” Mr. Platt explained. “And for the pit you need for the geothermal heating system. And for the nanny’s quarters.”

Nanny?

Sketch Pad architects are encouraged to imagine a family to live in their designs, and Mr. Platt did just that.

“She’s a hotshot at a hedge fund on Wall Street — she’s actually closer to work than she was in their fancy Park Avenue digs they sold to buy this,” he began. “He’s a writer, very eco-friendly; he’s really focusing on the geothermal stuff. The groundwater is 55 degrees, great for central air-conditioning.”

The couple have two very young children, both in preschool, and another on the way.

“They realized they couldn’t stay in their maisonette with just the three bedrooms,” Mr. Platt said, really getting into a melodrama. “And now with the third child on the way, they realize they need a housekeeper, so that’s five bedrooms. And the first floor will have sliding doors to the backyard, and we will design a flowing play space.”

Because they are intrepid enough to move from Manhattan, Mr. Platt envisions the couple as modernists, although perhaps not rigorous ones. The finished drawing he made of the interior shows light lavender armchairs he designed and a floating staircase made of steel and wood.

Outside, the new three upper stories are definitely of-the-moment, with floor-to-ceiling glass and some interesting detailing, including a brise-soleil — which Mr. Platt described as a louvered shading device — over the top-floor balcony, and rose-colored tempered-glass balustrades running around the balconies, which are set back from the street facade.

“The setbacks give the top floor — the master bedroom — the smallest interior space but the widest terrace,” the architect said. “That one would be wide enough for a dining table and chairs.”

The top-floor terrace also has a staircase to what is effectively the sixth floor: a planted roof terrace, which Mr. Platt said would be allowed under zoning rules.

“I’m not sure whether the brise-soleil — the louvers are actually 20-foot-long solar panels — and the other energy-saving efforts will do all the work,” he said, “but anything we can do to lessen our use of power ... ”

He paused.

The renovation and addition will use recycled steel, he said, “and all the green products we can.”

The cost of all this?

“Maybe $1.5, $1.6 million,” he said, tapping his calculator. “Not cheap, but they’re getting exactly what they want: five bedrooms and lots of outdoor space in a project that is integrated into the community.”