A 120-Year-Old East Village Co-op: Before and After Photos
The living room, after: The color palette started with the rug. “I fell in love with a specific rug — from Instagram, if I’m being honest, from CC-Carpet — and convinced Archie to fall in love with it,” Hackett said. The yellow chair is vintage.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
Why not really test the relationship with a two-year-old gut reno during a pandemic? matt hacket recalls not thinking at all when he and his boyfriend, Archie Archambault, decided to buy this apartment at the 120-year-old Onyx Court story in the summer of 2019.
They were already renting not far away in the East Village, in a place with a 1,000 square foot roof terrace, which they loved, but they thought, Why not just buy a seat? How hard could that be?
“We looked at dozens of apartments, many of which had already been renovated in ways that just didn’t make sense,” says Hackett, a technology investor. “As, Someone has stayed at the Mondrian, so why not make the apartment look like the Mondrian?But Hackett and Archambault didn’t want to live in a place that looked like this hotel, so they decided to “find something shabby and have a chance to make it look like what we actually wanted”.
Which led them to Onyx. It was designed by the firm of Harde & Short (who also designed the ornate French Renaissance-style Alwyn Court) and was originally a residence for actors and singers when this part of the East Village was a thriving theater community in early 1900s. It became a cooperative in 1983 of a particular bohemian ray. Many owners are writers, artists and scholars, and many of them have lived there for decades, including the previous owner of this place, a theater writer for the New York Daily News whose parents Archambault and Hackett bought it.
The living room, before: There were also built-in shelves.
Photo: GRT Architects
The unrenovated apartment was remarkably unchanged after over a century of use. There was the remains of a dumbwaiter in the kitchen. There was a long, dark hallway that wound curiously. The doors still had transoms above them. There were also only so many doors: 13, according to Archambault’s count. “It was a series of little pieces, more of a European way of life,” says Hackett. They were taken by its eccentricity and possibility.
But “we didn’t say yes right away,” notes Archambault, who owns a nearby typography shop on 10th Street called Archie’s Press. “It was gut-wrenching wreckage. There were constant red flags.
On the one hand, the tenant of the deceased owner lived with a rabbit. “They put a cloth over the cage, like we didn’t notice,” Hackett recalled. The place smelled musty; it was unclear if the rabbit was to blame. “Every time we went to see him, the real estate agent would light a candle,” says Hackett.
But the prospect of creating their own space as they wanted won out. “We’d never done it before, so we didn’t realize how long and painful it would be,” jokes Hackett. They hired GRT Architects, on the recommendation of some friends, to do the renovation. “They had done a lot of historical things without making them fuddy-duddy,” Hackett says.
“We didn’t want to just open it up and make it an open-plan apartment,” says Tal Schori, the firm’s founding partner. “We wanted to respect the history of the building and for the apartment to have all these unique and comfortable spaces.” And while “there’s not much to salvage”, it retains an idea of the original floor plan, other than moving the kitchen from the back of the apartment, where now the master bedroom, forward, where the dining and living rooms overlook the street.
The long corridor, before: It was twisted and dark. The long corridor, after: They straightened the angled hallway, letting in light and a clear view of the new kitchen at the front of the apartment. The floor is reclaimed oak and picks up the details of the original with walnut edging on the diagonal planks. The original plasterwork of the rounded walls was something that Schori and founding partner of GRT Rustam-Marc Mehta continued in the renovation. From left to right : Photo: GRT ArchitectsPhoto: Nicole Franzen
The long corridor, before: It was twisted and dark. The long corridor, after: They straightened the curved hallway, letting in light and an unobstructed view…
The long corridor, before: It was twisted and dark. The long corridor, after: They straightened the angled hallway, letting in light and a clear view of the new kitchen at the front of the apartment. The floor is reclaimed oak and picks up the details of the original with walnut edging on the diagonal planks. The original plasterwork of the rounded walls was something that Schori and founding partner of GRT Rustam-Marc Mehta continued in the renovation. From above: Photo: GRT ArchitectsPhoto: Nicole Franzen
“The kitchen was far in the dark,” says Hackett. “It wasn’t a very fun place to cook.”
Of course, everything took much longer than the novice renovators had hoped. The hope was to start construction in the fall of 2019, but that didn’t start for another year. “Each step took twice as long” as they expected, Hackett says. In the meantime, they’ve bounced back – much more than they anticipated. For a while they were in Hudson, but friends whose house they were renting from decided to put the place on the market. Then they stayed in various sublets around town (a Williamsburg spot’s water heater went kerflooey). And there’s only a limited time to live on Fire Island in a shared beach house with friends.
The main bathroom, before: It was a charmingly tiled and dated affair. The main bathroom, after: It features terrazzo of Concrete collaboration and custom carpentry. From above: Photo: GRT ArchitectsPhoto: Nicole Franzen
Finally, they arrived last fall, just before Thanksgiving, just in time for them to have friends for the holidays. the apartment is well appointed for entertaining and feels both intimate and glamorous. “We’ve chosen the mantra ‘Swedish grandma goes to Hollywood’ and it’s served us pretty well so far!” says Archambault, who also notes that they have reduced the total number of doors by nearly half. But most importantly, they survived the gut-reno relationship stress test and wed in the fall.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
The bedroom, after: at the back of the apartment, where the kitchen was. This freight elevator has been transformed into a closet.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
Hackett Office: It is next to the living room with a frosted glass sliding door to allow privacy and light. It’s his favorite piece.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
The floor plan, front.
Photo: GRT Architects
The floor plan, after.
Photo: GRT Architects
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