They Didn’t Want to Leave the City, So They Updated a Home to Channel the Suburbs

A much-needed makeover of a dilapidated house in an industrial stretch of Long Island City, Queens, gave a growing family space to stretch out—and the yard of their dreams.

"There he is! There’s my hawk!" Honora Dunham gasps as I step inside the home she shares with her husband, Ted Power, and their two young daughters, Rita and Jean, in Long Island City, Queens. Holding her eldest on her hip, Honora runs to the back of the house through the open-plan first floor toward the rear wall—a wood-trimmed puzzle of floor-to-ceiling windows. I follow Honora’s gaze to a bird perched, stoic, in the pouring rain. "They’re called peregrines," she explains, and this one is a repeat visitor.

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