Compelling interiors, like good storytelling, hinge on collaboration, between character and setting, instinct and intention. Broadway actress Barrett Wilbert Weed’s Brooklyn Heights home feels particularly alive, like a movie in which the setting is itself a character. When she bought the parlor-floor apartment in a circa 1900 brownstone, the previous owners had stripped away nearly all of its period detail, leaving it practically begging for restoration.
Weed was inclined to listen. “Houses definitely speak to you,” she says, adding: “In old homes, there’s always going to be a ghost.”
A vintage-inspired Ilve range and the toile fabric panels from Stout Textiles on the cabinets add a touch of navy to the white kitchen. Zellige tiles by Zia Tile line the backsplash, offset by unlacquered brass fixtures, including Rejuvenation hardware, House of Antique Hardware brackets, and a deVOL sink tap and pot filler. “We tried to stick to unlacquered brass for as many of the fixtures as possible, so that it would start to patina and look a little crumbly over time,” says Weed.
© Kirsten Francis Photography
Raised in a centuries-old house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Barrett Wilbert Weed grew up surrounded by antiques and a “whole pack of ladies”—a tight circle of women she came to think of as aunts, who had, as she puts it, “a very strong sense of decor.” Visits to one aunt’s haunted Rhode Island Victorian only deepened her appreciation for the era and her respect for the spectral.
In Brooklyn, that sensibility found its footing. Weed imagines the home’s spirit as a 19th-century woman in a long dress—and not a particularly happy one. Midcentury renovations left the 1,100-square-foot apartment diminished: a claustrophobic drop ceiling, a lofted bed, and a nondescript brick fireplace in place of what was once a grand marble mantel. “If there is a ghost living in the apartment,” she says, “I’m going to venture to guess she’s been very upset about that design choice for a very long time, and would like her old fireplace back.”
In both the living room and kitchen, the walls were plastered a creamy white hue by Michelle Kole. A martini table topped with a skirt, custom-made by Carey Trudeau in Schumacher’s Barlow print, sits between two Arhaus armchairs. To the right, an Arhaus chest is topped with an antique lamp and a vintage Staffordshire dog figurine from Painted Swan.
© Kirsten Francis Photography