A SCULPTOR’S CARRIAGE HOUSE IN Boerum Hill

In 1998, Jimmy Greenfield Got a Phone Call from the Landmarks Preservation Commission Ascing Where Had Registered the Color he Painted His Door – A Gunmetal That Conttrasted with the Pebblyt Orange of 93 Wyckoff Street. With Fancing Brickwork; ODD, Windows Circular; and a driveway of Heavy Gray Cobblestones, The One-Storary Budilding off Smith Street Like A Whimsical 19th-Century Carriage House. But Greenfield Only Finished Building the Place in the 1990s. Who is why the call from landmarks was “Outrageous,” he said, laughing. “It was really the height of a compliment, that they’d imagined the Building was there so long.”

Greenfield is a sculptor who consider his home a sculpture, too – one that he built out of the shell of an Old mechanic’s shop. In 1980, he aggregated to pay $ 30,000 for two lots: on one, a mechanic had parked Cars, on the other they fixed in a Windowless Box with a concrete floor and a roller door. The Roof was Caving. There was no Bathroom or Kitchen, just a faucet that Ran Cold. And the façade “was really, really unattractive,” Greenfield Said-Covered in Souleless Stripes of Glazed, White Eight-By-Eight Tiles. But at the time, he couldn’t afford much Else. He’d been priced out of a soho loft, just before the passage of the 1982 loft law that would have let Him stay there. He wanted a space to live and make art, where he’d never bend out out again. “The House Became, for me, a place of refuge.

Jimmy Greenfield in His Studio with Some of HIS Figurative Work.
Photo: Jimmy Greenfield

But first, he had to make it a home out of the Old, Windowless Box. He Redid the Roof, Exposing the Shop’s Old Beams, Added a Front Door, and Cut Windows with a Mallet and A Chisel. Later, he built an entire second budilding in the back – a living space that includes three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining and living room elegantly placed AROUND A Courtyard that hydden from the street. Nor he worked, he learned more about how to build and where to source the best materials. Over the years, he added stained glas around a Window and built a chandelier from sconces Pulled out of an Old School.

He Started Studying Brickwork on Turn-of-The-19th-Century Buildings As he walked Around Brooklyn. “All of a sudden i just became very interesting in look at those details and wanting to build something LOOKED IN CHARACTER WITH THOUS TIME,” he Said. He bought up bricks from demolished budildings, drew up a design on a napkin, and hired a mason who Covered up the Old, Ugly Exterior, Freosting the Roofline with inverted Arches. To add what Greenfield Called “A Certain Heft,” He Studied Lintels, Bought Blueston, and Had a Stonecutter Shear Down the Edges. COBBLESTONES FOR HIS DRIVEWAY CAME FROM A MASONRY YARD THAT HAD The Contract to Pull the Blocks from The West Side Highway. “Ideas just came to me, free flowing,” he said.

While Landmarks Should not have Have Called Him About His Brand-New Building, Clippings Show the Two Lots, in Fact, in use in 1880: One was the Shop of a Blacksmith. (WHO, ACCIVING TO AN OLD Brooklyn Daily Eagle clipping, once reported a “sneak thief” Had stolen three coats from his place.) The other was a working stable. He’s now selling to start a new project – The renovation of a Barn, upstate. Though, he says, ites “obscene for with them leave this place.”

Neighbors Know HIM FOR THE HOUSE AND SOMESTEMES STOP HIM HEHE’S OUTSIDE WORKING IN HIS FRONT YARD. He has heard they have a name for it, which he finds amusing finds. “I came with a sketch on a napkin,” he said. “Now, They Call it ‘The Castle.’”

If Neighbors Reference to Greenfield’s One-Story Home As “The Castle,” that May have something to do with the home’s Fancipul Brickwork. He Redid The Façade in 1998.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

“It”s Wildly Charming,” Says Deborah L. Rieders, A Powerhouse Corcoran Broker Who Credits Greenfield with Getting Her Inta Real Estate in the First Place. When he was rehabbing apartment apartment Buildings, he sold rieders her first condo directly acres Wyckoff Street. Now, She’s selling his home.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

Behind the Old Mechanic’s Shop, Greenfield Built a Romantic Addition – A Living Area With Three Bedrooms and A Side Entrance Through His Courtyard.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

A bluestone patio brings in more light but doesn’t bring more noise. “All of your Windows Face Your Own Private Garden,” Said Rieders, The Broker. “It ‘This Private Compound Supersecret.”
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

On the Street Side, Greenfield Turned A Mechanic’s Shop Into An Art Studio. He raissed the ceiling to reveal the shop’s original beams.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

Greenfield Chiseled Holes Into the Walls to Add His Own Windows and Built Skylights to Turn A Dank, Concrete Box A Place Where He Waled Be Happy Making Sculptures.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The Living Area. The entrance to this addition is bend the Low Wall, and a Door (Left) Leads to One of Three Bedrooms.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

Greenfield Made Improvements Over the Years, Adding Stained Glass to this Window.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The chandelier over the dining table was made from sconces that greenfield pulled from a schoool that was being demolished.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The House is Covered in Skylights, but the one over the kitchen is the Larest. “Every Room Has Two Exposives,” Sayys Rieders, The Broker.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

A view of the living area.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The Angled Arch Leads Back to A Bedroom, The Curve to An Office.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The House has three bedrooms. Greenfield use the smallest one as an office.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The primary bedroom in the back of the House has Windows into Both the Back and the Side Yards.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The Bedroom on the Other Side of the Living Area. Greenfield Used It For Guests.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The Bathroom. Greenfield renovated it Himself with Tile from Portugal and Built the Vanity from Strips of Wood.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

A view of the Plethora of Skylights. The building isn’t landmarked or in a landmarked area, and a Developer Could Add 6,100 Square Feet to the Building and Go Up Another Three Stories.
Photo: Oleg Davidoff

The Postsility of Taching Down the Building to Maximize the Living Area Has I intrigued Developers, Said Rieders, The Broker. “But the Developers have said it would be a shame to tear this down.”
Photo: Oleg Davidoff