From the fall of 2020 to February 2022, Ben Stern avoided hanging anything on the walls of his Brooklyn townhome. He didn’t even bother buying any new furniture either. “It was very sparse,” says Sophie Anderson-Stern, his wife. That’s because he was waiting for her. Ben, a child psychotherapist turned pottery enthusiast, had bought his 1901 Gowanus home right around the time they started dating. Sophie, a multidisciplinary artist with a long career in tattooing, even came to tour it before he moved in. Knowing there was a chance Sophie would move in and help put her own spin on the interior, he held off on making any big decorating decisions. “If I had been left to my own devices, it would have been very mid-century modern,” says Ben with a laugh. “Now, there’s a lot of color and personality. I made it a blank canvas and Sophie painted it.”
During those early days, Ben engaged MR Architecture + Decor to do a full remodel, turning it from a three-unit structure to a single-family home. They scrapped the faulty addition on the back of the house and replaced it with two levels of terraces flanked by glass windows and doors. They installed a high velocity HVAC system using flexible hoses that are a lot less bulky than typical ducts and opted for traditional electrical rocker switches (no fancy A/V or smart lighting systems here). “He didn’t want it to be a complicated, automated house,” shares William Clukies, senior associate at MR Architecture + Decor. “They just wanted absolute simplicity.”
Many of the home’s original details had been stripped over the decades, so the firm found other ways to insert character, like copying the only surviving newel post and replicating it on each floor. They also spruced up the original joists in the den by giving the beams a good old fashioned wire brushing and even repurposed a set of pocket doors as the headboard in the primary bedroom, which Sophie later lovingly layered with a small rug in an effort to blend their two styles. “We’re like a Venn diagram, there’s a sliver where we cross over and we’re both like, yes. That’s where we thrive,” says Sophie.
One of those intersections is the color green. “We could have done the whole house in green and been happy with it,” says Ben. In the kitchen, they landed on a gray-green for the cabinets (Sage Mountain by Benjamin Moore) that they ended up loving so much, they decided to use it on their front door, too.
Then, of course, the kitchen falls against a backdrop of real greenery, thanks to the new cold-rolled steel casement window system that connects the interior to the garden. There’s a small bar countertop on the other side, so the couple can easily chat with friends or pass snacks when the weather is nice. “It’s a kitchen designed so that two people can work together and not be in each other’s way,” says Clukies, pointing to the two different sinks and ample countertop space inside.
Sophie and Ben’s other decorating sweet spot: peppering in pieces made by family. Ben’s woodworker brother mostly focuses on making guitars, but he was totally game for crafting a long oval dining table out of curly maple for them.
As they prepared to welcome their first baby, Sophie focused on bringing bits of her half-Korean heritage into the all-over-green nursery, hanging a norigae in the window for good luck and painting imagery inspired by the temple architecture in Seoul. “It was really important to me that the artwork in her room reflected her and was very intentional for her,” she says.
Wanting a rocker that could live in any room in the future—not just the nursery—she spent weeks tracking down a vintage Danish piece. Overhead, the same Pinch pendant that hangs in the couple’s bedroom can be found here, except this one is adorned with paper butterflies and moth bugs that Sophie added for some extra whimsy.
Though, when the couple first brought their newborn home, they hunkered down in the den. “We were up all night, that was our schedule,” says Ben of their choice to crash on the couch. But now that they’ve returned to a somewhat normal routine, the space is prime for entertaining and gardening. At the end of the stained walnut millwork is a bar where guests can make cocktails or Sophie can trim fresh flowers plucked from the backyard.
Botanicals have always played a prominent role in her tattoo work, and during the pandemic she started growing her own blooms for reference, in particular heirloom chrysanthemums. “It’s a big part of the house. Every year, it’s a focus, like, Okay, how am I going to get this garden ready?” she says. Spring can’t come soon enough.
