The West Village Penthouse Built From City Scraps
When architect Adam Kushner opened his West Village penthouse for tours in 2004, the line snaked down Barrow Street and around the tree-lined bend at Commerce. The duplex became “one of the most popular attractions” organized by Open House New York, according to the New York Times, whose reporter joined the line in 2007 to see a place that was “part intimate abode, part installation art.”
Kushner built the apartment at 79 Barrow with salvaged materials. But there were no old barn beams or discarded townhouse moldings. Instead, the trash was uniquely New York: countertops from an old deli and flooring that incorporated wood from the apartment’s roof, which was pulled down in the renovation. Metal subway doors came from the MTA directly — which was apparently unheard of in 1997 when Kushner showed up at the repair shop and bought them for $50 off a summer intern. It was only after the apartment landed in the press that the MTA started selling parts online. Kushner had created a market.
The apartment itself was a product of lesser castoffs: two small studios in the back of a 1920s co-op, which he combined, before getting permission from the board to add a floor above. The result is a 1,400-square-foot space with a wide south-facing terrace that looks over the yards of neighbors: a quiet spot just blocks from West Fourth Street or the Hudson River. The renovation, which took four years, was inspired by the idea of a “metaphorical journey,” he told Home Concepts: from the bowels of Manhattan and into his aerie.
The entryway is framed in a stone similar to bedrock, then leads to subway tiles and into the lower living area — where exposed brick lines the back of an open kitchen and river stones are set into the floor. Upstairs gets more open with a bedroom and an office that share a curved metal ceiling that’s partly retractable. Kushner got even wilder when it came to the baths. A shower off the bedroom has a glass floor, so anyone on the lower level looking up could “see someone’s bottom,” he told the Times. And a sunken Jacuzzi in the living area, surrounded by those river stones, was even more of a conversation starter.
Stairs lead up to a bedroom level with a terrace looking south. On the right side of this image is an entrance to the glass-floored shower.
None of this made sense when Kushner and his wife had twins. And they listed in 2010. “I can’t tell you how many times the wisdom was ‘You’ll never sell this place,’” Kushner said. But the place sold quickly to the current owner, who has changed very little. The house and its sale changed the trajectory of Kushner’s career — not just by bringing him clients directly, such as a “British gentleman” who wanted a house inspired by a yellow submarine (“We got along famously”). But by freeing him, he said this week: “I lost any sense of fear of doing things that were unconventional and not quote, unquote, for the market.”
A buyer who sees the space today may want to make changes — updating the kitchen and making those unconventional baths a bit more modest. But Jennifer Lafferty, who shares the listing with Vicky Barron, says the space itself is a bright and quiet canvas for whatever comes next. “In the photos, it can look a little chaotic,” Lafferty said. “But it makes sense when you’re in it.”