It was an apartment with many of the right features—unimpeded city views, abundant light, and an appealing aesthetic. But despite the natural illumination, most of the rooms needed task lighting, as well as more storage. Some of the novel solutions included adding custom built-ins for both bedrooms and the office, a space ingeniously created from the former dining room. Low-profile track lighting systems, each fitted with minimal heads, bring the needed additional light to the interiors without reducing ceiling heights. “A handsome and well-edited space,” is how judge Matthew Patrick Smyth sums up the project.
Along its shady Bronxville street, a 1915 stucco Colonial is a handsome neighborhood presence—but just behind it, serving as a guesthouse, is a separate, new residence that complements the older structure while maintaining its own architectural identity. What had once been three land parcels were combined into one, giving the clients ample room to link the guesthouse to the main residence with a paved terrace, complete with a fireplace and pool. Because the new dwelling also faces a prominent road, it was deliberately fashioned to blend in with the neighboring houses. Judge Matthew Patrick Smyth regards the new guesthouse as a “considerate, classic upgrading and interpretation of an older home.”
It’s not an uncommon phenomenon in Manhattan, especially in venerable prewar buildings on Fifth Avenue, for two adjoining apartments to be combined into one. But for this residence, now 3,800 square feet, one of the conjoined units was in what the architects call “estate condition,” while the other needed to be “torn out completely.” Today no one could guess which one required the heavy lifting. A new wing contains a master suite, dining and living rooms, a powder room, and an entry foyer, along with a corridor that links the master suite to the children’s rooms. “Clean lines, beautiful textures, and great use of natural light” make for an overall design scheme that is characterized by “simplicity, elegance, and good space planning,” remarks judge Barbara Sallick.