Step Inside This Year’s Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse

“Yellow fields of wheat and blue skies above them. These are the colors of my native Ukraine,” Serhiy Mshanetskiy, founder of Brooklyn Heights Gardens, says of the inspiration behind the town house’s front window boxes. “Unfortunately, this year as well, spilled drops of red color had to be added to this palette.”

In Chused & Co.’s regal double parlor, a set of abstract artworks from the 1930s and ’40s spawned the “Art moderne” color palette, parlaying into pale green high-lacquer walls by NYC Fine Finishes, acid yellow accents, and a burgundy serpentine sofa. “I realized the two decades had a lot in common,” says lead designer Jenna Chused. “They both featured softer silhouettes and a certain purity of line, so the idea of mixing the two periods felt very inspirational.”

Burnished brass accents—including Circa Lighting fixtures, Dornbracht faucets, Dacor appliances, and Rove Concepts counter stoops—beautifully complement the parlor kitchen’s enveloping dusty rose hue. “The cabinetry—with [its] simple but beautiful design details—allowed us to create special moments with local artisans,” shares Michael Ingui, of Baxt Ingui Architects & BIA Interiors. With each material selection, the designers deliberately “urge you to not only look, but also to touch and feel.”

Known for its buoyant mix of color and pattern, local home decor shop Collyer’s Mansion called upon its well-curated lineup of artisans to decorate the library, which was warmly enveloped in a Sherwin-Williams soft pink. Patterns from Jennifer Shorto Textiles, Rebecca Atwood, and Walter G coalesce within the interior. The key to tying it all together? That’s Utopia Goods’ Paradise Cocoa fabric featured on the slipcovered chairs—it’s “what we like to call a ‘bridge’ fabric, and it really defined the palette for us,” Laura Rucker and Mauri Weakley share.

With fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli as her muse for the primary bedroom, Tara McCauley indulged in Surrealist design moments, from the repetitive Neoclassical by Ken Fulk for Pierre Frey fabric covering the headboard to Scalamandre’s velvet animal print upholstering the Billy Baldwin sofa.

In a showhome filled with pigment-rich and pattern-filled moments, Studio Dorion’s guest bedroom is a much-appreciated corner of calm. Chino cloth sourced from Manhattan’s garment district dresses the walls and the alcove bed. The interior’s airy and monochrome appeal is more than meets the eye: “It’s a subtle effect, but everything within the bed alcove is a slightly lighter shade of fabric than the rest of the room,” firm cofounders Michele Ficker and Peter Dolkas say. “It’s a nice mind trick, accentuating the daylight from the window.” Perforated shutters by nearby fabricators KLN Studio and an aluminum side table by Jonas Trampedach for Frama add material interest.

Neutral surroundings give way for expressive and saturated art and accessories in Antonio Buzzetta’s ’70s Italian study. “It was high-glam back then,” the designer says. “I couldn’t resist doing my interpretation of it.” The primary colors converge in artist Luis Urribarri’s Le Mirage painting.

In JS Interiors’ sitting room, colorful artisan touches—from the antique Kuznetsov plates from Tamam to the custom ceramic side table by Hand Wings—delight against a trompe l’oeil silk wallcovering from Pierre Frey. Designer Jessica Stambaugh says, “It encapsulates my approach to sourcing—to mix vendors, qualities, local with global, handmade with new production—to create a mood that’s unique and personal.”

In the laundry room, millwork specialist MeLinda K Design crafts “a playground of tailored cabinetry and accessories.” Indeed, no detail is overlooked within the hard-working space, with its custom built-ins fabricated by ISP Millwork, velvety lime wash wall treatment courtesy of JH Wallpaint, and cleaning supplies from The Laundress.

For some, low ceiling heights may be seen as a drawback. But for Jenny Dina Kirschner, of JDK Interiors, the 7-foot-tall walls posed optimum potential for fun. She commissioned artist Adam Sultan for the wonderfully convivial mural, which appears to radiate from the vintage ceiling fixture. “I took the opportunity to be daring, to express my exuberant, uninhibited inner child to create a whimsical experience any young child would dream of having right in their own bedroom,” the designer shares.

Although there are many endearing antique finds culminating in Meagan Camp Interiors’ solarium, the set of linen-matted 19th-century bird egg lithographs that frames the fireplace is a favorite. Floral curtains from The Shade Store, a lantern fixture from Circa Lighting, and a custom plaid rug by Crosby Street Studios round out the European garden aesthetic.

Nigel Rollings—who teaches Urban Garden Design at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in addition to running his namesake landscape design firm—considered plants’ sculptural dialogue when selecting species for the home’s roof deck.

For the home’s garden room, Circa22 Design Studio set out to create “an almost theatrical and dream-like setting.” An ensemble of furnishings from Arteriors, The Rug Company, Cosulich Interiors & Antiques, and Anthropologie build off the modern Chinoiserie mural—abundant with sweetly-hued birds, fruits, and flowers—from Flavor Paper.

Collected and composed, KD Reid’s garden-level sitting room assembles BoConcepts seating and accents from MadeGoods with antique and contemporary artworks, including an abstract by local painter Sarah Hinckley.

Brooklyn decor shops The Primary Essentials and Assembly Line—both located blocks from the show house on Atlantic Avenue—are used to working with the nuances of brownstone design. “On the garden level, for instance, we felt that it was best to embrace the darker space and evoke a feeling of calm rather than trying to make a bright open space,” Lauren Snyder, founder of The Primary Essentials, explains of the shops’ shared gallery in the town house’s garden level. Within the color-blocked space, the shops present the work of two new represented makers: svelte forms maker Sun at Six and contemporary furniture and lighting studio Hachi Collection.