It was an rare empty lot in this part of historic, old brownstone Brooklyn. It was adjacent to a former parsonage - one of the few remaining wooden houses that help give the neighborhood its historic character.

Now there is a new two-family house on Pacific Street in Boerum Hill, a Landmark District adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, and a few minutes from Downtown Manhattan. It is the first new house in this Landmarked District since the District was created decades ago. And it is one of the rare cases of a new house in any Landmarked District.

The design for the new house is thoroughly modern -- an original geometric style of bold masonry details, copper sheets, deep-set windows, geometric ornamental cast concrete sills and lintels. Yet it achieved acceptance by the NYC Landmarks Commission in record time, because visually it connects so well with its landmark neighbors.

When the architect and his landscape designer wife rented the adjacent parsonage they combined the two ramshackle rear yards of the parsonage and this empty lot, and created a single large garden -- a vast (for Brooklyn) idyllic garden with a hill and a pond.

Upon completing this new house the garden is being retained and is now happily shared by the residents of both the old and the new house.

This project has been published in New York 2000. Click here to view the PDF.