Rebuilding the Past: A Historic Retrofit in Brooklyn Heights with Oakleigh Custom Woodworks

By Jay Fox

Often referred to as America’s first suburb, Brooklyn Heights is one of the most idyllic neighborhoods in all of New York City. Lined with shady trees, stately brownstones, and historic townhouses that often date back to the early 1800s, Brooklyn Heights’ character and charm have remained largely untouched despite the explosive growth in other parts of the borough. Pierrepont Street, which is home to landmarks like St. Ann's School, the Center for Brooklyn History, and dozens of historic homes, epitomizes this enchanting aesthetic.

Prioritizing Preservation and Performance

Ingui Architecture Principal Will Conner says that LPC made their position clear from the outset: the team could make upgrades to the building’s performance from the interior, but the appearance of the façade and its historic features had to remain the same. Because Brooklyn Heights was the first historic district designated in New York City, its architecture is almost sacred to preservationists, and the team knew that the enforcement of preservation rules would likely be particularly stringent. Fortunately, the building’s owner appreciated the efforts of LPC and remained supportive throughout the project. “They were really excited about the whole process,” Conner says.

This wasn’t a Passive House problem, per se; it was a restoration problem that happened to be attached to a Passive House project. However, it was not going to be possible to hit the performance goals for Passive House without first addressing the condition of the bay, and the only way to adequately address its condition was to get LPC to green light what would need to be a complete reproduction of the bay, including its windows. LPC understood that cosmetic changes to the existing bay would not solve the underlying problem, so they approved the plan on the condition that the new bay look identical to the old one, including the panels beneath the windows and the proportions and details of the corner vertical and center vertical.

After struggling to locate a high-performance manufacturer who could make the historic detailing, Ingui’s team finally found a shop that could faithfully recreate the building’s historic features. To their surprise, it was over 1,200 hundred miles away, in Mobile, Alabama.

Oakleigh Custom Woodworks, LLC, run by Hastings and Anne Read, has built a name for themselves reproducing historic wood windows while incorporating the performance side of the equation. What sets Oakleigh apart comes down to their dedication to craftsmanship, something that the team at Ingui immediately noticed when they did something unusual: they sent someone up to Brooklyn to measure and capture the intricate details.

Lead Craftsman Bradley Roe, the fabricator the Oakleigh team calls one of the finest field measurers of historic buildings working today, spent a day and a half on-site painstakingly capturing all the dimensions of the bay, the parlor door, and the garden door—by hand, with no drawings to start from beyond a handful of photographs. When Conner asked whether Roe would produce a shop drawing, Hastings had one answer: "Bradley is the shop drawing."

That measuring trip did double duty. It gave Oakleigh the dimensional precision to rebuild the bay as a single piece off-site, and it put Roe shoulder-to-shoulder with GC Betim Jusufaj, the owner of BZJ Construction, who also served as site manager for the project. As a result, Roe and Jusufaj were able to build a working relationship that carried the project through every challenge that ensued.

Hastings explains that Oakleigh's default approach, when replicating something as intricate as the bay or the parlor door, is to work from the original rather than a drawing of it—so the old door and its trim were shipped down to Alabama and became the templates for the new ones. Oakleigh Shop Manager Nick Gates then collaborated with Roe to create the replacements in the shop.

"Renovating historic buildings is all about boundary conditions, many of which are unknown until the project is well underway," Anne says. "The standard construction paradigm is inimical to the realities of historic work."

The rebuild of the bay incorporated more than a single wood species, using Accoya in the areas most exposed to water and Sapele for the balance. Every profile was copied off the existing millwork rather than approximated. Because the new bay went in as one preassembled unit, Jusufaj's crew was able to pull the old structure back to bare brownstone, repair the masonry underneath, and include what the original bay never had: proper air sealing, waterproofing, and insulation between the wood panels. The finish—with its Italian urethane coatings—looks more like furniture than fenestration.

As Gates explains, the windows in the bay are simulated double-hungs, built to satisfy LPC in appearance and proportions while performing at Passive House levels. The insulated glass units came from Colorado-based Alpen and use triple-pane Thin Glass that can achieve an R-value of 15 even though the nominal thicknesses of the exterior panes are about 1/8”, the interior pane is closer to 1/32”, and the total insulated glazing unit is about 1-inch thick.

Ingui Architecture Senior Architectural Technician Jackson Wehrli points out that replacing the parlor door posed challenges that can be easily overlooked. In a single-family brownstone, the Passive House envelope often excludes the vestibule, he explains. In such cases, the high-performance door separates the vestibule from the rest of the home, while the public-facing door that falls under LPC guidelines does not need to perform to Passive House standards. As this is a multifamily building, the Passive House envelope had to include the front door. That one door system needed to perform exceptionally well, satisfy LPC’s profile requirements, and incorporate the building's electronic entry system.

Oakleigh faithfully reproduced the original door system in their shop while also improving its performance with updated hardware and Alpen Thin Glass. The entire system was then sent back to Brooklyn, installed, and integrated with the building’s entry system.

Amazingly, the replacement of the bay and the doors was completed in a matter of weeks. Had any of these components been imported from Europe, it would have easily taken many months.

What the Team Would Do Again

Ask anyone from the project what they'd repeat, and the answer is the same: get the right people in the room early. Conner explains that this has been a guiding principle for the team at Ingui for years, and that they tend to bring in fabricators and subs well before most offices think it’s necessary. More than getting everyone on the same page, it helps to build team cohesion and establish clear lines of communication, which are critical for historic projects.

Historic retrofits demand an ability to roll with the punches. With new buildings, teams have control over the design and contractors arrive at a site with a set plan. With older buildings, that plan is influenced by the conditions of the site. In many cases, the team may not even know what those conditions are until the wall has been opened up. Success is defined by being able to quickly adapt when the interior of the wall has been exposed and the team finds something truly unexpected.

Hastings refers to these as “now problems.” They are unforeseen issues that arise suddenly and need to be addressed within the hour, not three days later, because a crew standing around waiting on a decision is a crew losing time. "Be present, be attentive, and be helpful," he says, and the team's habit of fixing first and sorting out blame never kept them from moving. When a piece of trim came out wrong inside the parlor door, nobody stopped to figure out whose fault it was. They fixed it and kept going. Moreover, they were able to do this work from their shop in Alabama because they had sent Roe to Brooklyn to take the proper measurements, a process Hastings describes as “worth every penny.”

One of the ultimate ironies of doing something right is that people may not notice you’ve done anything at all. With historic preservation, this really is the goal. As this project demonstrates, preservation is not simply about maintaining what already exists. Some projects will require replication of pertinent features, and that kind of work requires a very particular set of skills that not every fabricator may possess—especially when replication is being combined with a high-performance upgrade. For the building on Pierrepont, the faithful reproduction of the bay, the parlor door, and the garden door was ultimately achieved because of teamwork, effective communication, and a strong commitment to craftsmanship.

"Oakleigh may make beautiful doors and windows that live at the intersection of history and high performance. But at the heart of it all Oakleigh is an experience, where the process of initial conception to a completed project is as pleasant as possible. This is not an accident, we have designed into our workflow and processes approaches that contribute to an enjoyable experience, both for ourselves, our clients, and others involved in the project."