Green Among the Brownstones: A Renovated, Historic Brooklyn Home

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Jörn harvests herbs in his Brooklyn home’s lush backyard garden. Photo By Stephen Ang

A boarded-up, 135-year-old brick brownstone that had been sitting vacant for years in a Brooklyn neighborhood wasn’t an easy place to envision a healthy home. But where others saw blight, architect Jörn Schröder saw opportunity. Using baubiologie, a system of design that considers the interaction between buildings and inhabitants, Jörn transformed the dilapidated eyesore into one of Brooklyn’s first sustainably remodeled, solar-equipped brownstones. In doing so, he also created a charming home for himself, his partner, Kat Roberston, and for renters looking for a healthy place to live.   

A City-Wide Search 

Though Jörn had built many homes from the ground up in his 14 years as an architect, he’d never tried an urban renovation. Interested in revamping an existing structure, he embarked on a two-year hunt for the perfect urban property. He discovered it in a rundown Brooklyn brownstone—far from perfect by most standards—that he purchased from New York City’s Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program in 2003. The building had a checkered past. Built as a single-family home in 1875, the structure was later converted to a multifamily dwelling and eventually abandoned. Kat and Jörn’s neighbors say the building served as a haven for drug dealers and squatters before the city took over. Jörn was determined to restore the building to its historic beauty, and to add something of value to its neighborhood.

After finally locating the ideal building for his project, Jörn had to wait another agonizing six months to receive a building permit before he could begin tearing into the remodel. Meanwhile, the deteriorating black tar roof was letting rain seep in and destroy most of the original wood floors. “The condition of the roof was terrible,” Jörn says. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, the longer I wait, the worse it’s getting and the more it’s rotting.’”

The water leaks had caused the home’s carrying wall to settle and the floor to sag. Jörn had several problems to remedy—fast. “The No. 1 priority was to replace the roof. It had a 2 1/2-inch-thick layer of tar and black paint,” he says.

Healthy Inside 

Jörn restored the building’s structural integrity by replacing the roof and several rotting beams and structures. Then he turned to the multifamily home’s interior, dividing the brownstone into four units: two second-floor studios with a shared bath; a one-bedroom space on the first floor; and a one-bedroom apartment on the lower level, which would become his and Kat’s home.