Brooklynites Joel Edmondson and Mimia Johnson did not consider themselves historic preservationists when they bought a one-room schoolhouse built in 1881 just outside Hudson, New York. But the charm of some buildings is hard to resist.

They first toured the structure on a gloomy April day in 2021. There was no electricity, yet the extra-tall windows on all sides lit up the interior on that gray afternoon. “It was welcoming, but it also made you feel humbled at the same time, like you’re moving through history a little bit,” says Joel. “We were excited about the potential: How could we honor the history, but also reinvent it?”

Before: Exterior

Joel and Mimia—he’s a furniture designer and she’s a creative director—originally met in art school. Now that their careers were well underway and they had a newborn baby, they were looking for a place outside the city—and a creative project that they could tackle together. Still, there was no rush.

“At first, there were a million reasons not to do it,” says Joel. “I spent the next four months telling myself I was doing due diligence, but I was looking for a reason not to do it.” As they mulled it over, they drew up a project budget. “I got to a point where I called the realtor and I was like, ‘Hey, if it’s still available, let’s make an offer,’” says Joel.

As it turned out, the wait worked to their advantage and they were able to negotiate a lower purchase price—which was good, since the building had no septic system, plumbing, or electricity.

After: Exterior

Situated on a main thoroughfare outside town, the schoolhouse is well known among locals. After its short stint as a school, it served as a community hall and a rummage shop before it was abandoned.

Just before they sealed the deal, the couple reached out to architect Dan Kaplan of Bowerbird Architects, whose own home up the road is a former ice house. “I know this region like the back of my hand,” says Kaplan. “I told them, ‘You have to buy that. It’s amazing. I’ve been there twice already, and I already have ideas of what I would do to convert it into a house.’”

As they embarked on the renovation, their first objective was to preserve as many of the eight-foot-tall, double-hung windows as possible. “We were all in love with the windows,” says Kaplan. “They have that beautiful rippled glass and very thin wooden mullions, which you can’t really get in modern glass because of energy code.”

Before: Entry

They also wanted to restore many of the building’s original features—from the wainscot and chalk ledge that wrapped the walls to the coat rail, floors, entry doors, and massive ceiling medallion.

After: Entry

Kaplan clustered the living spaces into the main room, and tucked two bedrooms and two bathrooms at the rear of the building. They discovered that the attic had enough clearance for a lofted third bedroom, so they built it out along with a tall staircase that helps divide the public and private areas. It’s topped with a wall finish reminiscent of chalkboard paint, and a large painting by Mimia.

Before: Classroom

After: Living Room

The team took down a tumbledown addition, which previously served as the girls’ entrance, and replaced it with a new volume that houses the bathrooms. (They had to sacrifice one of the original windows here because it was set into a rotten wall.)

Before: Classroom

After: Kitchen and Dining Area

“We had nothing to preserve on that side,” says Kaplan. “The owners and I were in lockstep about the best path forward, which was to counterpose a modern design against the existing, and we didn’t want the addition to be confused as part of the original school.”

Before: Rear Interior

After: Dining Area

After: Children’s Room

Elsewhere in the building, the team puzzled out a bunkbed layout for the kids’ room without sacrificing the old “boy’s entrance” door, and they installed a light well to bring more sunshine into the primary bedroom without altering the window proportions.

After: Primary Suite

For finishing touches, Joel built a number of furnishings, including a coffee table made of beams salvaged from the original structure. He smoothed the wood down so that it only reveals its storied texture upon close inspection. “I wanted to do a completely different take on reclaimed wood there,” he says.

Even after its transformation, the schoolhouse still feels like a communal space—the couple enjoy hosting friends for weekend ski trips, taking the kids to nearby farms, and having neighbors visit. “The house has been done for almost a year and we still get people who stop and say, ‘I had my Girl Scout badge ceremony here in 1977,’ or ‘I came to a bingo game here in 1964,’” says Mimia. “Everybody knows the schoolhouse. It feels like it belongs just as much to them as it does to us, because it's been in the community for so long.”

After: Second Bathroom

After: Staircase and Lofted Bedroom

More Before & After stories:

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Project Credits:

Architecture: Bowerbird Architects / @bowerbirdarchitects

Builder: James Romanchuk & Sons

Structural Engineer: Proper & O'Leary Engineering

Interior Design: Joel Edmondson Design Studio