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The 19th-century Neo-Grec townhouse in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, had seen better days. But its new owners, Freya Zaheer and Whit Bernard, could see past the rough edges to something more promising: a home that could grow with their young family while honoring both its own history and Zaheer’s Indian roots. “She outlined her background, and it was important that the home they were creating included references to India,” architect Elizabeth Roberts recalls of her first meeting with the couple, who had enlisted her firm to bring the house back to life.
Salvaged doors from a Rajasthani haveli became room dividers at each end of the dining room, their carved details creating dramatic focal points. Moller armchairs surround the refinished dining table, which the family already owned, while a vintage 1960s chandelier dangles from original plaster rose to marry period authenticity with contemporary sensibility.
Matthew WilliamsThe request initially flummoxed Roberts and Robin Rathmann-Noonan, her interior design director. “We thought to ourselves, ‘How are we going to make an Indian townhouse in Brooklyn?’” says Roberts. The house itself had plenty of period character worth preserving—original mahogany handrails, plaster moldings—but it had been chopped into apartments and needed serious, down-to-the-studs rehabilitation to become a single-family home. More challenging was the question of how to authentically incorporate Zaheer’s heritage without resorting to pastiche-y gestures.
To temper the straightforward, angular range hood, the team cloaked the kitchen in lush Portola plaster for a soft tactility that complements honed Quartzite counters and backsplash. Open shelving keeps the feeling airy.
Matthew WilliamsThe breakthrough came via FaceTime, with the clients standing in a salvage yard in India surrounded by architectural elements. Roberts and Rathmann-Noonan spotted a set of antique carved doors from a Rajasthani haveli (mansion) in the background. “They looked gorgeous,” says Roberts. “And we could immediately envision them on the parlor level.”
The pieces weren’t just beautifully weathered and subtly atmospheric—they made architectural sense, perfect for partitioning the dining room in an enfilade layout and echoing other details already present. “There was this interesting parallel to the original shutters in the house,” says Rathmann-Noonan. “They had the same timeworn ethos.” The team had discovered a throughline: To restore the street-facing shutters in the living room and primary bath, they stripped them back to bare wood, starting a vibrant dialogue with the architecturally salvaged materials from a continent and era a world away.
The custom Verde Borgogna marble island commands attention with its sculptural circular form, anchored beneath a skylight that floods the space with natural light. It provides extra counterspace for two avid cooks without overpowering the room.
Matthew Williams
An ample wall of custom cabinetry makes a kitchen with a small footprint fully functional and clutter-free, with appliance garages, refrigeration, and storage sealed behind millwork sheathed in creamy Cornforth White by Farrow & Ball.
Matthew WilliamsThe frisson was magical, and the tactile interplay became a guiding principle. In the primary suite’s walk-in closets, Roberts installed custom millwork with caned door fronts—a subtle Indian reference, similarly imbued with the artisanal. Oak floors in a chevron pattern throughout were left unstained so their natural patina could harmonize with the symphony of wood grains. In the kitchen, Portola plaster wraps the walls and range hood in an earthy, hand-applied texture that comes alive under changing light. And in the dining room, a custom limestone mantel offers a cool-as-a-cucumber riposte to the haveli doors that references the present day.
Custom caned doors cover the walk-in closet in the primary suite, where pleated ivory curtains provide softness. Walls in Benjamin Moore’s Hushed Hue.
Matthew WilliamsBut it’s the kitchen’s Verde Borgogna marble island that demonstrates Roberts’s mastery of sculptural relationships. The circular slab feels dense and permanent, its green veining like frozen lightning, yet its rounded form creates flow rather than obstruction in the narrow galley space. Originally planned as a square for maximum counter space, the team fiddled with that idea when those geometries—paired with a wall’s worth of hide-it-all rectilinear cabinetry—felt too static in situ. “We were really hoping to make this small room feel light and airy,” Roberts says. That she manages to derive levity from slabs of immovable marble speaks volumes about the firm’s modus operandi.
A swooshing pendant by Stephen White hangs over a freestanding Water Monopoly tub, giving the tone-on-tone primary bath a quiet sense of movement; the vintage rattan chair is another gentle reference to Zaheer’s Indian background. Fittings, Waterworks.
Matthew WilliamsFor Roberts and Rathmann-Noonan, sunshine and plenty of white space are as much tools as quartzite and wood. “Because of the openness of the floor plan, you experience many of the design elements from every perspective,” Rathmann-Noonan explains. “You need that breath, that quiet, so that each piece can sing from every side.” That restraint is the firm’s cornerstone: part practicality, part poetry. “I love to give things enough space to be seen,” says Roberts. “It’s always a balance and it’s very intentional.” The calibration ensured that nothing in the residence feels forced: A Brooklyn townhouse gets its bones back, India gets its place in the spotlight, and a young family is welcomed in by a home that breathes with intelligence and heart.
