Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Family-Run Firm Adds Art and Architecture to Brooklyn Homes

 Home renovations from the Brooklyn Home Company.
The Brooklyn Home Company
View Full Caption

COLUMBIA WATERFRONT DISTRICT — Whether it’s a handcrafted barn door or a butcher-block counter top made of Sapele wood, the Brooklyn Home Company adds a piece of art to all their homes.

Since 2006, the family-run cooperative has been designing, building and decorating homes around the city, bringing their signature style of white and wood textures to each project.

“I got a tremendous amount of job by putting those artistic elements in the house,” said Bill Caleo, the company’s president, who started the company with his cousin, Zach Stern, in 2006.

Designing homes “from start, all the way to how it will be furnished,” the Brooklyn Home Company, located at 138 Union St., has completed projects in Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, in Manhattan and has even expanded their work to outside the city.

With an in-house team of designers, contractors and an architect, the company has built homes and recreated interiors but “our real DNA is gut-renovating brownstones,” while also maintaining original features from the homes, said Caleo.

“Anything that can be salvaged, we do,” he said.

But brownstone projects can often take between 18 to 24 months to complete, said Caleo, who recommends clients to dedicate $180 to $300 per square-foot for the construction.

Lyndsay Caleo, the company’s interior planner and Caleo’s sister, said their team would often create a unique abstract sculpture for the project with salvaged wood.

They also try to add a handmade element to each project, using reclaimed materials from the house itself for bannisters, doorways and their signature sliding doors, said the designer, who was trained as a metalsmith at Rhode Island School of Design.

“There is artistry from these buildings that were made a hundred years ago,” she said.