Architect Restores an 1800s NYC Factory into a 1-Bed Apartment

Architectural Digest

Today, AD steps inside architect Gabriel Yuri’s 860-square-foot New York City loft, a soulful restoration of an 1800s Federal-style building that once housed a furrier’s shop. Blending industrial charm, minimalist modern design, and mid-century warmth, Gabriel transformed the space into a deeply personal tribute to his grandparents, particularly his grandmother, whose story and design sensibility inspired much of the home.

Transcript

00:00When I was looking for an apartment, I knew I didn't want something that was like thousands

00:16of other spaces in the city.

00:19And then I found this apartment, which was inside an 1800s federal style building that

00:24was once a business that sold furs, an artist's refuge and a home for women.

00:29It had the charm and character that I was looking for, but it needed a ton of work, which I did

00:34mostly myself and with the help of a handyman.

00:37The whole restoration took about four years because I was just starting my architecture

00:41career, I was working late nights, and I did what I could with my budget.

00:45On top of all that, just before I purchased this apartment, my grandparents died.

00:53They were both incredibly special to me, but losing my grandmother was like losing my best

00:57friend.

00:58Despite all the loss, I was determined to infuse this place with all of the history that made

01:04it so special.

01:05And I was able to add touches from my grandmother's house that will always remind me of the time

01:10that we shared.

01:11In a way, this space is really dedicated to her.

01:15Hi, I'm Gabriel Uri, and this is my 860 square foot New York City loft.

01:30We're in the living room space now.

01:32When I first came to see this space, it was a bit of a disaster to be honest.

01:36Half of the walls were unfinished.

01:37People, I think, had started to try to fix things, but ran out of money and then decided

01:43that they wanted to sell.

01:44I knew immediately that I wanted to peel back some of the layers, and I had a feeling there

01:49was this beautiful brick behind the plaster, and I was right.

01:52So I knew I wanted to expose this west side wall, and we did from this end all the way to the

01:58opposite end of the apartment.

02:00And since this building was a furrier, we actually found little pockets of fur that were hidden

02:05in the wall.

02:06When I first got the space, the ceiling was lowered, and it was covered in sheetrock.

02:11I knew I really wanted to expose the old existing ceiling beams, and we did that.

02:18This floor is taller.

02:20There's a higher ceiling height because it was a commercial space.

02:24So we have almost 12 feet ceilings here.

02:26I really feel like just getting that little bit of extra ceiling height by exposing the

02:30beams totally opened the space up and made it feel a lot larger.

02:35Since this is a small space, I wanted to maximize any opportunity to get extra storage.

02:40So underneath these cushions, there's additional storage here.

02:47I came up with this idea because this platform had to stay here, so I figured if it's going

02:52to be here, we might as well add a little bit of extra storage.

02:56I wanted to retain as much of the original industrial character that already existed in the space,

03:02and I wanted to also imbue a little bit of my own more minimalist, modern style.

03:07But I also had some really great mid-century pieces that I got from my grandmother, like

03:12this Hans Wegner chair.

03:14The apartment's really a marriage between those three different ingredients.

03:18My grandmother Norli was born in Vienna, in Austria, and when she was about 12 or 13,

03:27escaped due to the Nazi occupation and went to the Czech Republic before ultimately ending

03:33up here in New York City.

03:35And she settled in Queens with my grandfather, and she found out after coming here that her

03:41father had been killed in a concentration camp.

03:43I'll always be grateful to New York City for providing that safe haven for her and allowing

03:49her to start the family which I am part of.

03:53Even before I came out, my grandmother sensed that I was queer, and she actually brought

03:58the conversation up with me, which just made it easier for me.

04:01My parents were super accepting, but my grandmother Norli, I always felt like I could actually talk

04:07to her and divulge even more to her, partly because she also had this untraditional, non-conventional

04:14relationship in her life.

04:17My grandparents, they had an open marriage.

04:19They both had their own partners in addition to one another.

04:23They really did love each other intensely, and they were bonded for life.

04:27I may not have realized at the time, but I think she really fostered this just super tolerant,

04:32accepting environment for me that, as an adult, I realized more and more was incredibly formative

04:39for me.

04:40And having these reminders everywhere of my grandparents makes me feel safe and at home.

04:52This is the kitchen.

04:53The apartment has a few really narrow spaces, and this is definitely one of them.

04:57I know for some people, a kitchen like this probably would be too small, but I'm not the

05:02world's greatest chef.

05:03So for me, it was totally fine.

05:05The layout is pretty much the same as how the apartment was when I found it.

05:09I did change the cabinet doors to these stainless steel doors and refinish the butcher block countertop.

05:17When I was restoring the place, my neighbors were also doing a renovation to their apartment

05:22and happened to be getting rid of the original tin ceiling tile.

05:26And when I realized this, I asked them, could I have it?

05:29And I was able to restore the original tile from the building into the kitchen.

05:34And I love it.

05:41The narrowness of the kitchen extends all the way to the bathroom in this hallway.

05:45Even though it's a narrow space, I tried to maximize the storage potential.

05:49So behind these curtains is all my clothes and washer dryer.

05:54This is a cool old vintage ladder and I use it to get up to this side of the storage to

05:59get all the way up to the top.

06:00This door was here and I just loved the patina.

06:03I didn't want to touch it.

06:04The bathroom is narrow, but it's cozy.

06:07And this old cloth foot tub was already here, which was great because I love taking baths.

06:11And I just painted the walls black and left the exposed brick.

06:15So it creates this sort of kind of dark and sensuous bathroom.

06:20I also put the old tin from the building on the bathroom ceiling and just gave it a fresh

06:25coat of paint.

06:26I didn't want to cram the room with the storage space, but I did put in these little corner

06:31shelves, which are very practical.

06:33And then I had this bath tray created out of the same wood so that I can have like a glass

06:38of wine or some green tea in the morning in my bath.

06:42So this is like a weird L-shaped hallway that connects the dining room to the kitchen.

06:47But I figured, why not make it a little moment for art and some beautiful objects.

06:51This is the bust of my grandmother that she had in her house and my side passion is photography.

06:57So this is a mix of my own photographs and artists that I really admire.

07:05I went to grad school in London, but I really wanted to start my design career in New York

07:09City.

07:10So after I graduated, I came back and I moved in with my grandparents.

07:14It was amazing to get to live with them.

07:16My grandmother was really one of my best friends.

07:18And I think it was hard on her for me to be so far away in London for three years.

07:24After a few months of living with them, my grandmother passed.

07:27And then just a few weeks later, my grandfather passed as well.

07:29I see the poetry and the fact that they passed so close to one another and also in New York

07:35City where their romance began.

07:38It kind of spurred my search for my own space.

07:42And I was always looking with this eye of where could I incorporate the elements that I loved

07:47about their house.

07:59Now we're here in the dining room slash library.

08:05I decided to hang this amazing window that I got from my former office building, Star Lehigh

08:13on the west side.

08:14They were replacing the windows with brand new ones.

08:18And I just figured these old ones are so beautiful.

08:20I wanted like a little piece of that time in my life.

08:24And so I salvaged one of them.

08:26And now it acts as the room divider between the dining room and the living room.

08:30So you have this brick built out on this side.

08:33And so I figured let's just span shelves from one end to the other and maximize the storage

08:38space on this wall with bookshelves and some cabinets below.

08:43And then also just wanted to use the full height of the space and get as much in as we could.

08:48Since the ceilings are high, we needed a library ladder, which I had custom built for the

08:53space.

08:54This is where I have my family portraits.

08:57And this was my aunt, Brenda, sadly no longer with us, but I always felt like a kinship with

09:02her.

09:03And then my grandfather, my grandmother looking very glamorous.

09:07My grandmother with her jazz singer boyfriend in their home in Queens, where a lot of this

09:13furniture came from.

09:15And then another sort of glamour shot of her there.

09:19In the living room, there was the original hard pine floors, but in really bad shape.

09:24So we just refinished those.

09:26And then in the dining room, it was too far gone to save.

09:29So we did this herringbone gray marble.

09:32So this is another example of where things were covered up.

09:35There was this weird shape build out here.

09:38And I just figured like, why not rip it off and see this like crazy pipe that I feel like

09:43is almost a sculpture in and of itself.

09:47These Jens Rizome chairs I got from my grandmother, I feel like the weaving sort of complements and

09:52plays off of the herringbone floor.

09:54The table is Tom Dixon from ABC Home and the pendant is George Nelson.

10:00It's definitely a small dining room, but I feel like I can comfortably have four or five

10:05people over for a little dinner party.

10:08All of these amazing transom windows were totally covered up.

10:12And when we ripped off the wall that was here, we discovered them.

10:17And I just thought it would be amazing to bring them back and also get some of this southern

10:22light to come in to the bedroom.

10:25And these pocket doors were in my grandmother's house.

10:28She was not formally trained as a designer, but I feel like she just had this incredible

10:32design sense.

10:33And she sketched these doors out and had them built and as a kid, I always loved seeing them

10:39in the house.

10:40It was a little bit of a challenge reconfiguring the hardware to fit into this thinner wall.

10:46So we devised this steel header that kind of hides the hardware.

10:51And now I think it works pretty well.

11:06So this is the bedroom.

11:07The exposed brick wall comes all the way through to the end of the apartment here.

11:11And I decided to leave this wall super minimal because I feel like the texture of the brick

11:16is just so beautiful.

11:18The bed is a custom design and I just couldn't find anything on the market that I really loved.

11:24So I decided to design something myself.

11:26The chairs on either side are Arthur Uminoff, also from my grandmother.

11:32These sconces are from a salvage place that I found on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

11:37They're actually industrial naval lights.

11:39I didn't mind seeing the exposed electric conduit.

11:42The pendants in this room are also just a little bit of a nod to the industrial history of the

11:47building as well as just leaving the air conditioning units exposed.

11:53I didn't mind.

11:54A lot of people, I think, were a little surprised that I wanted to do that.

11:57I was kind of happy to have them exposed and contribute to this industrial feeling of the space.

12:04I went to grad school in London at the Architectural Association and I had found this door in Oxfordshire.

12:12And I was using it there as my dining table, but I really didn't want to let it go.

12:18So I brought it back with me and now it's my closet door for the bedroom.

12:23I wanted like a little space for books and for objects in the room and so I copied something

12:28that my grandmother used to do all the time, just stacking bricks or blocks and having wood

12:33cut to size.

12:34And I think it's just such a smart, efficient solution.

12:37So I made this sort of corner shelving unit here.

12:52From an early age, I was interested in architecture and design.

12:56I would play The Sims, but I wasn't really interested in the people.

12:59I just wanted to build the houses for the people.

13:03And I would have these old AD issues and I would see houses that I loved and I'd recreate

13:08them in the game.

13:09I think with the design of this space, I was telling multiple stories.

13:15One of them, of course, being the history of the building, this incredible legacy of industrial

13:20New York, and then also my grandparents' story, but also my own sort of design aesthetic.

13:27And it was definitely a challenge to blend all these different things together.

13:31But I'd like to think that it came together in a harmonious way.

13:35I love having the reminders of my grandparents and it makes me feel like I'm still connected

13:40to them.

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