This townhouse, located in the historic Greenwich Village District in Manhattan, involved the gut renovation of a century old home and its’ rear stable house.  Rather than demolishing and build anew, the owners decided to leave their respective shells intact and create a new interior and a vertical extension that respected its past, but was not enslaved by it.

The primary new façade was pulled back from the original one, creating a front courtyard, thus maintaining the scale of the original streetscape. The house takes its primary design cues from historical accounts of Great Oak Trees creating a canopy crossing over the legendary Minetta Brook, now, Minetta Street, directly fronting the property. The trees currently lining the street, form a series of Gothic Arches which inspired the steel façade and, in a similar manner, will be covered in Ivy, adding a green wall terminus to the street and an appreciated public gesture, as well as paying homage to its former incarnation as it was known as ‘The Salad House’ owing to its heavy use of vegetation on the façade.

The house has several other allusions to its rural origins. From the conceptual: a triple height living room being an analogue to the hollows found in the base of most trees providing protection to its inhabitants, to the literal: Most of the wood was harvested from the owners’ property upstate and used throughout to form the flooring and wood detailing throughout. Additionally, the nine fireplaces located throughout the home provide a viable alternate fuel source. [in addition to the incorporation of solar panels] 

The home is programmed to have smaller service spaces working in tandem with larger adjacent served spaces.  Thus the bedrooms have a secondary work/office space adjacent to them. A mid level convertible open space demarcates the original home from the new floors above. A rooftop cooking area offers precious outdoor space, and for reasons practical and otherwise, an 83’ artificial rock-climbing wall [the tallest east of Nevada] is situated in the rear courtyard, providing surreal urban experiences.