For Alan Eckstein, the founder of New York gallery and design studio Somerset House, the opportunity to design a Park Slope brownstone “completely changed our world.” Eckstein connected with the owners of the 6,300-square-foot home, which had recently been renovated by AD PRO Directory firm The Brooklyn Home Company, when they set foot in his Long Island City showroom. Eckstein’s client explains that he and his wife were drawn to the designer’s “warm, organic, eclectic style.” Eckstein says, “We had a lot of creative freedom. The family really believed in what they were buying.”
While most of the home is rooted in neutrals, Eckstein opted to coat the kitchen in verdantly hued paint. “I can’t get enough of green,” he says, adding that he’s a longtime fan of the color, as was his client. The designer’s goal was to define the kitchen so that it didn’t feel like a “white tunnel,” he adds. “I wanted the room to feel like it’s larger with the change of color.”
The scalloped hood over the range is something that Eckstein custom designed, working alongside KTA Millwork and drawing inspiration from the Paolo Buffa game table that sits within the bay window of the parlor room. KTA also created the kitchen island, over which Mario Bellini pendants hang.
While selecting furnishings, Eckstein was inspired by the home’s curved interior doors. “There’s rounded edges everywhere,” he says. “That was a conscious decision.” A Hans Pieck plywood chair sits in the right-hand corner of the living room and is accompanied by a Scandinavian modern club chair by Berga Møbler—one of two in the home—on the opposite side. With its two buttons, the seat reminded the homeowners of a smiling face. “They wanted a friendly chair,” Eckstein says.
In the stairwell, five Noguchi pendants are linked together, resulting in a dramatic 53-foot fixture that spans from the top of the house to the bottom. This creation was part of one of Eckstein’s preliminary visions for the home. Elsewhere, sunny yellow paint drenches the walls of the home office. “It’s a room that gets a ton of light all day,” Eckstein says. The hue was a “sweet zone”—not too bright yet not too mustardy, he adds. “[Eckstein] really kind of capitalized on the unique kind of light in that room to make it a very invigorating but still kind of calm place to be working,” the client says.
An Aubusson tapestry hangs on a wall in the front portion of the primary bedroom. “It came within one inch of fitting on that wall,” Eckstein says. “It was the most serendipitous moment.”
The space features pops of marigold furnishings among a deep blue backdrop. “I felt like this was a romantic spin-off of the blue,” Eckstein says. Meanwhile, the elegant lamp designed by Ilmari Tapiovaara “offsets the tapestry and the softness of the room a little bit.” The fixture, titled Maija Mehiläinen, or “Maya the Bee,” was inspired by a character from an early-20th-century German children’s book.
