420A Lafayette Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11238
A multi-floor Clinton Hill brownstone renovation with restored period details — exposed brick, an original carved staircase, fireplace mantels, and rooms designed with real character.
Clinton Hill's tree-lined Lafayette Avenue is home to some of Brooklyn's most beautiful brownstones, and 420A is part of that fabric. This was a multi-floor renovation with serious period character — the kind of project that depends on knowing what to keep, what to restore, and what to introduce new.
The original carved staircase, complete with its ornate newel post, was preserved and refinished. Period fireplace mantels in multiple rooms were kept intact. Exposed brick walls were cleaned and left visible as a feature. Around those preserved details, the Zani team added the work a modern home needs: a new kitchen with stainless appliances, multiple baths (including one with a freestanding tub and another with a patterned floor and floating vanity), refinished hardwood floors throughout, and updated systems behind the walls.
A patterned wallcovering in the powder room and a deliberate use of warm terracotta paint give the apartment real personality — this isn't a generic gut renovation, it's a home with a point of view. What makes a Clinton Hill renovation succeed is the discipline of doing two jobs at once: building for the homeowner who lives there today, and respecting the architectural character of the block.
The result at 420A is a home that feels modern in the spaces that should — kitchen, baths, infrastructure — and unmistakably historic in the spaces that should, with the original soul of the brownstone intact.
