A Former Foundry Becomes a Jaw-Dropping Modern Home
The industrial building in a New York forest features dark wood floors, crisp white walls and a charred-wood loft
Mitchell Parker
24 October 2019
Houzz Editorial Staff. Home design journalist writing about cool spaces, innovative trends, breaking news, industry analysis and humor.
Houzz Editorial Staff. Home design journalist writing about cool spaces, innovative... More
For most people, pop-up ads are an annoyance that comes with browsing the internet, and rarely if ever get clicked. But for Claire Benoist, clicking a real estate pop-up ad led to a life-changing event.
At the time, Benoist, a professional photographer, and her husband, Derek Kilner, a United Nations humanitarian officer, were looking for an apartment to buy in Brooklyn, New York. Randomly, Benoist clicked a real estate pop-up ad for Westchester County, about an hour and 15 minutes north of New York City. “I just fooled around on the website for a second,” she says. “Then I saw this house, and I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I felt this pull toward it.”
The pull was coming from a former masonry foundry built in the early 1890s for handling ore. The building had been converted to a home in the 1950s by some artists, and had been chopped up and added to over the decades. But Benoist saw its potential as a weekend home away from busy New York City.
On a whim, Benoist and Kilner checked out the house that weekend. “We had nothing else to do, and this was just a funny thing to do, so we drove the hour north,” Benoist says. “I walked in, and I knew I needed this. As cliché as it sounds, it just called to me. My husband, not so much. He’s more of a realist.”
At the time, Benoist, a professional photographer, and her husband, Derek Kilner, a United Nations humanitarian officer, were looking for an apartment to buy in Brooklyn, New York. Randomly, Benoist clicked a real estate pop-up ad for Westchester County, about an hour and 15 minutes north of New York City. “I just fooled around on the website for a second,” she says. “Then I saw this house, and I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I felt this pull toward it.”
The pull was coming from a former masonry foundry built in the early 1890s for handling ore. The building had been converted to a home in the 1950s by some artists, and had been chopped up and added to over the decades. But Benoist saw its potential as a weekend home away from busy New York City.
On a whim, Benoist and Kilner checked out the house that weekend. “We had nothing else to do, and this was just a funny thing to do, so we drove the hour north,” Benoist says. “I walked in, and I knew I needed this. As cliché as it sounds, it just called to me. My husband, not so much. He’s more of a realist.”
“After” photos by Nick Glimenakis
House at a Glance
Who lives here: Claire Benoist, a photographer, and Derek Kilner, a United Nations humanitarian officer
Location: Somers, New York
Size: 3,250 square feet (302 square meters); four bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms
Designer: Ravi Raj Architect
Builder: John McNamara of McNamara Carpentry
Before: The existing structure was built to handle heavy loads of ore, so the 14-inch-thick masonry walls, all load-bearing, were in good shape.
Benoist liked the idea of having a weekend escape, a place near nature where the couple could grow their family. They looked at their budget and figured they could buy a smaller apartment in Brooklyn than they had planned, and use the rest to buy the old foundry and fix it up.
Before going all-in though, the couple had an architect friend, Ravi Raj, and a contractor drive out and take a look at the house. “I could see the potential right off the bat,” Raj says. “From a structural standpoint there was never a doubt that it was in good shape. Cosmetically, we looked at how to address patching the roof and holes in the masonry and bring comfort to the bedrooms.”
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House at a Glance
Who lives here: Claire Benoist, a photographer, and Derek Kilner, a United Nations humanitarian officer
Location: Somers, New York
Size: 3,250 square feet (302 square meters); four bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms
Designer: Ravi Raj Architect
Builder: John McNamara of McNamara Carpentry
Before: The existing structure was built to handle heavy loads of ore, so the 14-inch-thick masonry walls, all load-bearing, were in good shape.
Benoist liked the idea of having a weekend escape, a place near nature where the couple could grow their family. They looked at their budget and figured they could buy a smaller apartment in Brooklyn than they had planned, and use the rest to buy the old foundry and fix it up.
Before going all-in though, the couple had an architect friend, Ravi Raj, and a contractor drive out and take a look at the house. “I could see the potential right off the bat,” Raj says. “From a structural standpoint there was never a doubt that it was in good shape. Cosmetically, we looked at how to address patching the roof and holes in the masonry and bring comfort to the bedrooms.”
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After: Most of the couple’s budget went toward updating the building’s interiors and the plumbing, electrical and HVAC; little was needed for the exterior. Raj and general contractor John McNamara added a stair railing and painted all the wood on the stair and second-story deck black. New windows and a door in black trim and a black roofline add architectural interest.
The door seen here is the main entrance to the home. Around the left side and up the stairs is a secondary entrance that leads into the second-floor great room.
The door seen here is the main entrance to the home. Around the left side and up the stairs is a secondary entrance that leads into the second-floor great room.
Before: The second-floor great room was the main selling point for the couple. Previous owners had built their master bedroom off this room and built the kitchen on the ground floor. Benoist and Kilner immediately knew they wanted to bring the kitchen up to this dramatically tall and light-filled room. “It takes a lot of imagination to walk in and be able to believe in it,” Benoist says.
The brick had already been painted white and the flooring had a dark finish, but the couple wasn’t sure what it was. “It looked like this weird, waxy paint that was dark brown,” Benoist says.
The brick had already been painted white and the flooring had a dark finish, but the couple wasn’t sure what it was. “It looked like this weird, waxy paint that was dark brown,” Benoist says.
After: The couple added fresh white paint (Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore) throughout the house. “It’s a thick, warm white that’s not as glaring as Benjamin Moore’s Decorator’s White, which is often used in museums,” Raj says.
But the main feature in this room is the wood-burning fireplace and its snaking flue that extends up to the 26-foot ceiling.
Benoist says friends told her and her husband that they would never be able to get the place warm, that it was always going to be freezing and drafty. But the insulated fireplace, coupled with forced air, gets the job done. “It’s such a cozy, awesome place to curl up with a book,” Benoist says. “We do a lot of cooking and hanging out by the fireplace all winter long. During snowstorms it’s like a snow globe. You wake up in a white forest.”
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But the main feature in this room is the wood-burning fireplace and its snaking flue that extends up to the 26-foot ceiling.
Benoist says friends told her and her husband that they would never be able to get the place warm, that it was always going to be freezing and drafty. But the insulated fireplace, coupled with forced air, gets the job done. “It’s such a cozy, awesome place to curl up with a book,” Benoist says. “We do a lot of cooking and hanging out by the fireplace all winter long. During snowstorms it’s like a snow globe. You wake up in a white forest.”
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The couple originally wanted light gray Scandinavian-style floors, but when they stripped the existing finish, they noticed different kinds of wood from different time periods.
There was a lot of oak, but some spots appeared patched with pine. Then there was a third spot with an unknown wood covering an 8-by-12-foot opening in the dining area; the opening had once been used to pass hay bales to cows on the ground floor when the building was used as a dairy farm.
The quotes the homeowners received to refinish the existing flooring to a point where they could sand down all the crooks and crevices and match the tones among the three woods were way out of their budget. “The only solution was to go dark,” Benoist says. “And it looks so much better. The contrast calls out the beams. It really worked out.”
There was a lot of oak, but some spots appeared patched with pine. Then there was a third spot with an unknown wood covering an 8-by-12-foot opening in the dining area; the opening had once been used to pass hay bales to cows on the ground floor when the building was used as a dairy farm.
The quotes the homeowners received to refinish the existing flooring to a point where they could sand down all the crooks and crevices and match the tones among the three woods were way out of their budget. “The only solution was to go dark,” Benoist says. “And it looks so much better. The contrast calls out the beams. It really worked out.”
Before: Many of the home’s renovations were not up to code, including a loft over the master bedroom off the great room.
After: The team updated the loft, converting it to a bedroom; they wrapped it in charred-oak slats and built out a kitchen below it in place of the bedroom. “We wanted to add texture back to the space to offset it being a white box — a more materially interesting white box,” Raj says.
The biggest surprise was the electrical, which the couple discovered had been hacked together from a different property and split in two. “It was well below code,” Benoist says. They knew this when they bought the house, but they didn’t know the challenge they would face updating it. They had to coordinate with the New York state energy and gas company to bring an electrical line over to the property. “It’s a hard property to access,” she says. “It’s not really on a road. You have to drive up a 1.4-mile gravel driveway, and there’s a couple acres of forest all around. It took multiple visits to dig a trench and run an electrical line from a neighboring property to finally get our own service.”
But they had some luck throughout the project that helped balance the bad and the good without impacting their budget too much. For example, they were originally told they would likely need an entirely new roof. Upon inspection though, it turned out to be in good shape and needed just some patching.
The biggest surprise was the electrical, which the couple discovered had been hacked together from a different property and split in two. “It was well below code,” Benoist says. They knew this when they bought the house, but they didn’t know the challenge they would face updating it. They had to coordinate with the New York state energy and gas company to bring an electrical line over to the property. “It’s a hard property to access,” she says. “It’s not really on a road. You have to drive up a 1.4-mile gravel driveway, and there’s a couple acres of forest all around. It took multiple visits to dig a trench and run an electrical line from a neighboring property to finally get our own service.”
But they had some luck throughout the project that helped balance the bad and the good without impacting their budget too much. For example, they were originally told they would likely need an entirely new roof. Upon inspection though, it turned out to be in good shape and needed just some patching.
Before: Here’s a closer look at the existing master bedroom area that the previous owners had created and that Benoist and Kilner converted into a kitchen. The couple created their master bedroom in what was once used as an attached mother-in-law unit (shown later in the story).
After: Benoist, shown here in the new kitchen, wanted a showpiece island facing the great room. Raj wrapped the piece in Grigio Trambiserra marble.
The cabinets are Ikea with sawn-oak fronts in a smoked finish.
Cabinet fronts: Reform
The cabinets are Ikea with sawn-oak fronts in a smoked finish.
Cabinet fronts: Reform
Bringing a single-piece 5-by-13-foot window above to the space above the dining room proved challenging. The company that made it wouldn’t bring it all the way up to the house on the gravel road for fear it would shatter and they would be liable. McNamara and his men stepped in; they brought it up to the site, hoisted it in and set it into the masonry.
The whitewashed plywood landing is 30 inches high and doesn’t require a railing per local code. It doubles as a seat to take off and put on shoes.
The landing leads to a staircase to the loft.
The staircase features exposed raw plywood edges for the treads and risers. Raj had the tops of the bolts that secure the railing to the treads ground down and painted, so they are hidden for a cleaner, minimalist look.
For the entry steps, Raj inlaid whitewashed wood between the original plywood pieces to help hide wear and tear.
The lofted guest bedroom looks over the living space below. It includes a secondary lofted reading nook, accessed by the ladder shown here. “It sounds cheesy, but it’s kind of like a room within a room within a room,” Raj says.
Here’s a look from the guest bedroom into the living room.
Before: As mentioned earlier, the previous owners had added on a small structure as a mother-in-law unit, seen here. By the time Benoist and Kilner bought the place, the add-on had fallen into disrepair. “It was in a horrible state,” Raj says. “The walls were rotting; the floor had to be replaced. We wondered if we should just demo it, but in the end the cost of renovating it was OK, so we turned it into a simple container for the master bedroom.”
After: The revamped space is clad in black painted wood panels.
Inside, a Shaker-style stove warms the place up. Most of the furniture in the bedroom and throughout the home was inherited from Benoist’s family.
Stove: Wittus
Stove: Wittus
In the master bathroom, 8-by-8-inch terra-cotta tiles wrap the walls and floor. “The tile has a nice worn, homemade feel,” Raj says.
The vanity is a simple custom floating plywood box with a pedestal sink mounted on top.
The vanity is a simple custom floating plywood box with a pedestal sink mounted on top.
Black and red cement tile was originally supposed to wrap the entire powder room, but when budget constraints got in the way, Benoist chose black paint instead and used the tile just for the floor.
Paint: Witching Hour, Benjamin Moore
Paint: Witching Hour, Benjamin Moore
Before: On the ground level, bluestone pavers previously made up the flooring. “It seemed like a castle or a wine cellar,” Raj says.
After: To make the ground level more livable, the couple wanted to replace the flooring. But tearing out all the bluestone pavers would have been too expensive. Instead, Raj found a subcontractor to apply an architectural concrete screed on top of the bluestone pavers. The screed is almost like a plaster, he says, and includes white pigment, which helps brighten the room, and a sand mixture that gives it a textured look. “It gave us the feel and look without necessarily redoing the entire structure,” Raj says.
The couple found these original oak doors during the renovation and wanted to incorporate them into the house. McNamara and his team cleaned them up and planed the sides to make them fit the opening. “It’s one of the nicest compositions in the house,” Raj says.
Ground floor: This floor plan shows the layout of the ground floor. The main entrance to the home, also seen in the second photo of this article, is area number one at the bottom.
Second floor: The main level of the home includes the great room (area three) and kitchen (area five). Here you can also see the secondary entrance (area two), which leads into the great room.
Loft: The loft over the kitchen includes a bedroom (area three) and a second lofted reading nook (area one).
Despite their initial hesitation about the whole endeavor, Benoist and Kilner are glad they went through with it, especially since the entire project took about seven months of design and six months of construction and came in right on budget.
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Despite their initial hesitation about the whole endeavor, Benoist and Kilner are glad they went through with it, especially since the entire project took about seven months of design and six months of construction and came in right on budget.
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What was the renovation budget?
To be there in the snow-magic. I love old brick so the structure is just delicious. And I love whitewashing. I would have done what ever was needed to keep the bluestone floors though. Does the guest room have curtains ?
Beautiful design. You are very lucky to have such a brilliant architect, Ravi, as a friend.