The key function of a designer is storytelling. Some homes need that narrative dreamed up, while others already have it laid out to be inherited. This half-width brownstone in Cobble Hill is the latter of the two. The former home of Paula Fox, Newberry-prize winning author, grandmother to Courtney Love, and maybe (or maybe not) lover of Marlon Brandon, the space already exuded a kind of denuded, Old-New-York charm when our clients first invited us to see it prior to closing. Because they are both actors, they appreciate a good dose of dramatic flair — they ask for an updated interior that honors these original features, but also for a hint of the cinematic and baroque detailing.

We start in the garden-level dining room, leaning into its dark, eastern-facing exposure by enveloping it in a deep merlot and covering the walls in Zak & Fox’s Saru wallpaper for a touch of the absurd. The adjoining kitchen and pantry space see a significant reconfiguration, moving the basement entrance to create a wall for a bank of cabinets to land on, and bringing plumbing lines to transform the former pantry into a desperately-needed powder room. Both spaces are united by a deep forest green, with handmade Italian terracotta running throughout.

One floor up on the parlor level, the home’s insignificant width makes creating fully separate areas a challenge, so we add a massive bookcase that runs the full length of the room to serve as a backdrop for 3 separate vignettes. In the formal living area, a custom sofa is covered in an emerald velvet, and we layer in vintage lighting and seating in intentionally clashing patterns, time periods and colors to give the sense of something that has been lovingly created over the years. In the remaining spaces upstairs, we deftly weave in a variety of patterned wallpaper to honor the original ones by Fox and employ a mix of colors to make the home just-cacophonous-enough. A bank of cabinetry is added to the petite main bedroom, and its sleeping alcove is covered in Colette Cosentino’s Brindille Wallpaper whose movement mirrors the vintage Henredon headboard.

On a recent visit to the home, we walk in to find a wicker basket suspended in midair by a homemade pulley system in the central staircase. Our clients’ two daughters have been using it to communicate with each other across floors, coordinating tea parties and play dates and sending secret communiques through this Rube Goldberg contraption. It’s exactly the kind of banal sweetness we designed the space for, a kind of scene that feels like it was yanked straight out of a movie. But maybe it should be a book first.