After Jake Hurwitz and Jillian Vogel bought their Brooklyn row house in 2020 and started a top-to-bottom remodel, the couple turned into foragers. “Alan from Demolition Depot was my best friend for a few months,” says Jake, a comedian who’s name you might recognize from CollegeHumor. He and Jillian, who was a producer on 2022 movie Fire Island, would search for parts at the depot for their new-old home, built in 1910. “There were deep rabbit holes, like trying to find ceiling medallions that had the exact same pattern from the original in the basement. It was really fun.”

Such rabbit holes, whether they lead to salvaged medallions or marble fireplace decor, became a favorite pastime of Jake and Jillian’s while they fleshed out a new plan for the house with local firm Hatchet Design + Build. By the time the couple took possession of the row house, it’d seen decades of remodels, each room a little time capsule. Imagine smoky glass mirrors from the ’70s in a den, then a 1950s bathroom with an aquamarine sink. While layers of finishes can tell a story, such piecemeal remodeling makes it difficult to implement wholesale changes that meet current building codes.

Before: Front Exterior

“When something is renovated incrementally like that, what tends to happen is that floor joists get cut, or plumbing gets routed in suboptimal paths, and we need to pull everything back to start fresh and build up from there,” says Matt Ransom, design director of Hatchet.

While much of the home’s historic detail was long gone under layers of wallpaper and mismatched windows, Ransom saw an opportunity in its dropped ceilings. “Toward the front of the house, they were probably around eight feet, but originally they were around thirteen,” he says.

Hatchet aimed to recapture those proportions with a new front and back façade and interior layout across two floors and the basement, all while bringing in more natural light wherever possible. A new front door opens from an updated exterior stoop into a vestibule Ransom and his team created. The existing windows, which were short and wide, were changed out for a three-over-three pattern that brings in more light while referencing the originals.

After: Front Exterior

Throughout the process, it was important to client and designer alike that the changes not make the row house something it wasn’t. “We were very aware that this isn’t a traditional townhouse in Park Slope,” says Jillian, a producer behind reality show Fire Island, who grew up in the city. “This is a row house, so we wanted to keep some things down to earth.”

The remodel blends old character—like the preserved central staircase and a somewhat traditional floor plan—with interventions like the front stoop’s open treads in steel and a blended kitchen and dining room that allows Jake and Jillian to easily entertain. “What’s interesting about this type of house is that it’s not an august brownstone, but it would have had some of those same details on the interiors,” says Ransom. “So, they wanted to restore without creating a total facsimile.”

Before: Front Hall

During: Front Hall

After: Front Hall

The entry to the three-level, 2,323-square-foot home was previously at the basement level. There, what was previously a kitchen, living, and dining room was converted to a standalone unit for rental income. That left the upper two floors to be reorganized into a plan that reflected the original townhouse, with some tweaks.

Ransom placed the living room at the front, then consolidated closets and a powder room into a central core. The combined kitchen and dining room are now at the rear, where they benefit from several windows and a glass door to the backyard that makes hosting gatherings easy.

The central staircase and railing were kept, becoming the “spine” of the remodel. “It’s the thing that really most speaks to where the house has come from and we worked really hard to preserve it,” says Ransom. This included rebuilding the spindles and balusters and restoring the plaster sweep on the underside, which required hiring specialty craftspeople.

Before: Living Room

After: Living Room

While city records show the row house was originally built in 1910, through a neighbor the couple learned a bit more. “He told us that the house was built in the 1890s as a summer house for wealthy Manhattanites to escape the city,” says Jake.

It was a description that, like every piece of architectural salvage the couple found, captured their imagination. “We were just really in love with the idea of making this house feel like a summer house, so we were pulling reference images of the weathered gray shingles and the paint splattered floors in Cape Cod,” adds Jake, who grew up in Connecticut and has fond memories of summers spent in Nantucket.

Before: Central Core

During: First Floor

After: Central Core

Jillian and Jake brought in their foraged finds, which include carved vestibule doors and marble fireplace surround sourced from Demolition Depot, and Hatchet helped cull them into a cohesive whole. The final mix includes salvaged pieces pulled during demo, like the aquamarine powder room sink and funky brass seahorse hardware in the kitchen, as well as their own family heirlooms, to continue the story of the house in all its iterations.

“Typically, owners don’t want anything to do with what they see when they first walk in,” says Ransom. “They want to forget that the shag carpet ever happened and take a time machine to go all the way back to the beginning. I think it’s really wonderful when the building—as it existed later in time—still has some of those traces in the end.”

After: Kitchen and Dining Room

“We were just really in love with the idea of making this house feel like a summer house.”
—Jake Hurwitz, resident

Before: First Floor Hallway and Staircase

After: First Floor Hallway and Stairs

Before: Rear Exterior

After: Rear Exterior

Before: Primary Bedroom Suite

After: Primary Bedroom Suite

Before: Kitchen

After: Primary Bedroom Suite

Before: Upstairs Hallway

After: Upstairs Hallway

More Before & After:

Just-Right Furnishings and a Few Shades of Paint Punch Up a Brooklyn Brownstone

A Traditional Brooklyn Brownstone Receives a Chic Makeover Inside and Out

Project Credits:

Architecture: Overhead Architecture

Builder: Hatchet (@hatchet.nyc)