Upper West Side Row House

This project had a sad start. The last owner had chopped this imposing limestone row house into four mean apartments. But we salvaged what original woodwork remained and then set about re-creating the rest. Our new layout restores the rooms to their grand scale. In contrast to the heavy oak at the stair halls and common rooms, our kitchen is a clean composition of cream-colored ash and white quartzite. At the new rear wall, giant steel windows open three floors to the garden. Outside, raised planting beds of board-formed concrete tier up to a high retaining wall at the rear lot line. And from there, a linear fountain cascades down to a reflecting pool.