Designing a deVOL Kitchen for a New Jersey Brownstone

1st October 2021

By Holly Bishop

Imagine discovering an 1852 brownstone with tall ceilings, beautiful proportions, original moulding and classic period features just a stone’s throw from New York City in a historic district of Jersey City, it would feel too good to be true. Searching for the perfect home takes time and patience and effort and after months and months of looking, stumbling across this place would feel like such an exhilarating and lucky moment. But just imagine if it was actually the first home you went to look at, now that really is incredible. Well, this is what happened to our wonderful customer Arianna De Gasperis, she stepped into this big classic property and instantly knew it was the one, all it needed was a little TLC – which, luckily for us, included a lovely new deVOL kitchen.

The prettiest kitchen with a perfect place to pull up a Bum Stool.

 

Arianna is actually the founder of And Studio, an interior design company that embraces longevity, timelessness and the beauty in the deliberately ‘undone’. Well, we absolutely love simplicity and things with provenance and the imperfectly perfect, so it was an ideal match.

You can’t go wrong with a chunky Lacanche range cooker, especially when paired with one of our brass pot filler taps and huge expanses of marble.

 

The kitchen is a place everybody naturally gravitates towards so it’s important to spend time getting it right. Arianna decided to knock down an existing wall to open up the room and give her more space to work with, but it was crucial to keep the classic feel of the property so she had the original 1800s crown moulding remade to match the rest of the room and laid a traditional oak herringbone floor. New kitchens that look like they could have always been there will always be our favourite and getting the bones of the room right is the very best starting point.

The owner decided to tear down this wall, creating one large airy room for her dream kitchen.

The room was stripped right back and completely redone, but you’d never know.

 

The main cooker run in the kitchen was designed using our Classic English range of cabinetry, as was the bank of full height pantry cupboards that run opposite. deVOL started crafting this range over thirty years ago, beautifully proportioned Georgian Irish inspired designs made to specific sizes and requirements each and every time.

The most beautiful bank of Classic English pantry cupboards spanning just under 2m with deep shelving, internal drawers and brass spice racks.

 

The island and the little ‘wet bar’ area, a new term for us here in the UK but essentially a small section in the kitchen dedicated to making drinks (the dream!), used our Real Shaker designs. Our Shaker range is very similar to our Classic English, just a little simplified. We have set sizes we try to use as much as possible and it is crafted in a slightly different way. This makes it more cost-effective but each cupboard is just as well made and good looking. The two collections sit so happily together, we often mix and match them in our showrooms and we’re so pleased our customers love this look too.

The spot for whipping up a quick drink… the base cupboard to the right is actually a little integrated wine cooler!

 

The beautiful muted olive green paint colour on the back run of cupboards is a bespoke shade we mixed specifically for the project, what a perfect choice by And Studio. It feels so classic and in keeping with this traditional brownstone. The other shade is one from our Shaker collection, it’s called ‘Mushroom’ and has been a firm favourite of ours and our customers for years and years. It’s soft and simple and just the perfect neutral.

How good is the bespoke green on the cupboards against the hand-trowlled plaster walls by Jersey Ice Cream Co?

 

The striking Arabescato Corchia marble worktop is the perfect contrast to the simplicity of the cupboards. Natural materials are always our favourite and especially marble, this stone will wear in such an authentic and charming way that you just can’t replicate with a man-made material.

A kitchen designed for eating and drinking and hanging out and entertaining, and just about everything else.

 

What a wonderful kitchen this is, we feel so proud to have been a part of this project. We began making cupboards for homes in the Leicestershire countryside over thirty years ago and to now see them sitting so effortlessly in a grand brownstone townhouse just over the river from our showroom in Manhattan, wow, it really is such an amazing feeling. The beauty of expertly crafted, classic, simple pieces of furniture is that they fit into all settings and styles and will age in such a graceful and elegant way, you never have to change a thing.

The 1852 tax record for this beautifully unique building, what a cool piece of history!

 

Thank you so much to Arianna of And Studio for choosing deVOL, we absolutely adore your kitchen and loved working with you, and to Nicole Franzen for these beautiful photographs of the space.

– Learn more about this project on the Classic English Kitchens section of our website.
– Check out And Studio’s Instagram page or see more of Nicole Franzen’s photography.
– Building work by Thompson Fine Home Renovations