When Sandra Davis and Bruce Levine bought a garden-level maisonette in a 1910s townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, they knew they’d have to accept its quirks, at least for a while.
“We loved the large garden, but the apartment itself felt cramped and dark,” Mr. Levin said, noting that the backyard was only accessible through one of the bedrooms. “And the entrance was oddly shaped: To get to the apartment we had to go up a flight of stairs and back up another flight of stairs.”
The couple bought the co-op apartment in 2012 for $1.25 million, “knowing we had to renovate it,” said Ms. Davis, founder of Donorly, a fundraising consultancy.
As the years passed, the time never seemed right to begin major construction. They commuted back and forth to Seattle, where Mr. Levine, now 74, is a partner in a law firm. That’s when Mrs. Davis, now 62, started her business. They were also busy raising their family, which included five children from previous marriages, now 22 to 42, as well as grandchildren (they now have five).
“Then the pandemic hit,” Ms. Davis said, and suddenly they were forced to consider their surroundings. “When you look at your walls day after day, you start to really pay attention to all the things that need to be done.”
Almost a decade after buying the apartment, they decided it was time to take action. Then something unexpected happened: The owner of a triplex next door decided to sell. Ms. Davis and Mr. Levine bought the condo for $1.25 million in September 2021, with the idea of combining the two lots to create a 2,500-square-foot home where their entire family could gather — and eventually to build their original apartment.
As a female business owner, Ms. Davis wanted to work with a woman-owned architecture firm. After reviewing portfolios, she and Mr. Levine chose Alexandra Barker, the founder of the Brooklyn-based studio BAO.
The way the apartments were arranged, Ms Barker said, “was very complicated”, with oddly placed staircases and level changes. To solve this, he not only took down the walls separating the two houses, but moved the stairs.
The main living space at garden level now extends all the way from the driveway to the backyard. It includes a lounge at the front, a kitchen next to a dining room with a built-in banquette and a master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and glass doors that open to the backyard. To provide another access point to the yard, Mrs. Barker added a thin bridge from the kitchen.
On the basement level, he created a media room, a guest room and an office for Mrs. Davis, as well as space for a freestanding bath. Upstairs, on the living room level, where the couple sits at the front of the building, Ms. Barker designed an office for Mr. Levine that doubles as a guest house, as well as a play area for the grandchildren, hidden behind shutters.
The renovation gave the house a new sense of style. Ms. Barker used a color palette of deep blues and greens meant to evoke the Pacific Northwest and chose attention-grabbing finishes: terrazzo with large chunks of stone. wallpaper murals depicting trees, clouds and animals, and slatted and tambourine woodwork.
“We were pushing it,” Ms. Barker said of her bold choices.
But her customers were receptive. “The terrazzo is something I don’t think I would have ever chosen on my own,” Ms Davis said. But now that it’s installed inside the house – as flooring, counters, baseboards – “I love it.”
Likewise, “I didn’t know I was a wallpaper person,” she said. “Every time I’m in a Zoom meeting in my office, everyone comments on the wallpaper” — a mural of colorful trees from Rebel Walls. “I dont regret.”
The couple moved into a nearby rental when construction began in April 2022. Their home was completed in May 2023, at a cost of about $1.2 million. Since then, they’ve put the apartment through its paces and found that it works exactly as they’d hoped.
Last Thanksgiving, all the kids and grandkids arrived to spend the holiday together. “We just had such a great time. “Everyone was sitting around the table doing puzzles and playing games,” Ms Davis said. “I felt so comfortable having so many people in one apartment in New York.”
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