Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
164 Coffey Street, in Red Hook, had been boarded up as long as neighbors could remember. The three-story red-brick box with a little blue door was built in the 1860s as workforce housing by the Atlantic Dock Company, which once ran the wharf nearby. By the 1970s, the city repossessed it. And in 2010, when Matt and Jessie Sheehan bought the place for $925,000, neighbors all wanted to know what was inside. Not much, as it turned out. “You literally opened the front door and saw sky,” Jessie said. Which is what they wanted.
The building in 2010.
Photo: Rafe Churchill
The Sheehans had just finished renovating a townhouse in Fort Greene, preserving every last finicky detail, then selling. This time around, they wanted room to invent. At the time, Matt was a teacher and environmental coordinator for a Brooklyn school, and he wanted electric appliances powered by solar. Jessie, an ex-lawyer who had pivoted to writing cookbooks, wanted a kitchen that matched how seriously she took her new line of work: convection ovens, induction burners, and an oversize pantry. Visits to a friend in Red Hook had convinced them on the neighborhood, and they saw Coffey Street as the best block, where chunky cobblestones ended at a park with views of the Statue of Liberty and a key-lime pie stand.
They hired Rafe Churchill, an architect based in Connecticut whose portfolio was thick with New England country houses, minimal and luxe. “I’ve got this thing for the Shakers,” Churchill said. “For their use of raw wood, plaster walls, and their gesture for creating something a little more playful through a sense of color.” When Churchill first toured 164 Coffey, he was in love. “There were no layers to peel away. There was nothing about the house that would send you off, trying to solve problems. All the problems were already removed.” And there were opportunities. With a ladder, he climbed to the top floor and punched holes in the plywood, finding harbor views and a whiff of salty air.
Great light, but no roof in 2010. Rafe Churchill.
Great light, but no roof in 2010. Rafe Churchill.
The Sheehans liked the idea of putting their kitchen, living room, and dining room on the top floor — a layout that meant Jessie, when hard at work at the stove, could look out and see the sea. It also meant the family was more likely to bring coffees and cocktails up to the roof-deck and that a skylight they created would flood their living areas with sun.
Churchill built up the walls with plaster, to give a sense of history. Simple Shaker-style moldings were painted with colors that added funk and frivolity but did not feel out of place. In the living room, a burnt orange pulls out the color of the neighboring brick buildings at sunset. In the bedrooms, molding painted in seafoam and slate nod to the harbor. A foyer off the entrance is lined in a red that nods to the brick façade. Matt, who grew up in Massachusetts roving flea markets with his mother, pounced on antiques that played up a vaguely nautical theme, like a chandelier that he thought looked like it belonged on a pirate ship. “I like interiors to have a narrative, even if I’m the only one who can interpret it,” he said. “It makes spacing out on the couch a lot more fun.”
Jessie insisted on an open kitchen — making it easier to be with their two kids when she was working or just cleaning up. And they seemed to constantly have friends over who didn’t mind taste-testing peppermint-chocolate whoopie pies and buttery biscuits flavored with Old Bay. “I give them all the treats I’m making, and they tell me what’s good, or what I need to change,” she said. That process, and the space itself, have helped her write cookbooks here. But the boys are now grown. And the fourth cookbook comes out next week. “It feels like a special bond I have to the space.”
The restored façade (left) has a striking blue door, a nod to the color that architect Rafe Churchill pulled from the abandoned house (right). The gut remodel aimed to clean up the building without adding fuss. “We wanted it to feel understated — and to actually be understated,” Churchill said. From left: Photo: Joel Pitra/DD RepsPhoto: Rafe Churchill
The restored façade (left) has a striking blue door, a nod to the color that architect Rafe Churchill pulled from the abandoned house (right). The gut…
The restored façade (left) has a striking blue door, a nod to the color that architect Rafe Churchill pulled from the abandoned house (right). The gut remodel aimed to clean up the building without adding fuss. “We wanted it to feel understated — and to actually be understated,” Churchill said. From top: Photo: Joel Pitra/DD RepsPhoto: Rafe Churchill
The blue door opens into a vestibule with an antique bust whose “subject is a mystery,” said Matt Sheehan, a flea-market buff. A door on the right opens to a hall that leads to the owner’s suite upstairs. Another door, not shown, opens to a rental one-bedroom with private access to a huge backyard.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
Floors throughout are 19th-century Heart Pine either salvaged from the original 1860 building or sourced from a dealer who had saved the framing of the old Rockaway Boardwalk. Shelving in the mudroom (right) was built from the thick wooden joists of the abandoned building. Walls throughout are basecoat plaster.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
Follow the stairs to the top floor, and you’ll land in an airy, loftlike living space. Off to one side is the dining table with a painting that Matt Sheehan was told came from a New Orleans bar. The chandelier reminded him of what might hang in a pirate ship.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The whole floor looks over New York Harbor, the view that convinced the family to flip the house and put their living spaces up here. “What I was struck by, over the entire house, is how well it’s laid out — how practical it is,” said their broker, Greg McHale. “It’s a really, really smart house. No nonsense.”
Photo: Joel Pitra /DD Reps
Built-ins and a wood stove make the space feel cozy. Rafe Churchill, the architect, suggested double-hung windows so that they would get a full blast of sea air. “The air rushes through that building, front to back, and on certain days there’s a real smell of salt,” he said.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
Orange trim might seem audacious, but it mirrors views of Red Hook’s brick at sunset. From left: Photo: Joel Pitra/DD RepsPhoto: Rafe Churchill
Orange trim might seem audacious, but it mirrors views of Red Hook’s brick at sunset. From top: Photo: Joel Pitra/DD RepsPhoto: Rafe Churchill
A professional baker and cookbook author, Jessie Sheehan wanted thick marble slabs cool enough to roll dough and induction burners and convection ovens, which are easier to control. There are actually three ovens, but this kitchen looks like a normal, residential kitchen because two are hidden away in a pantry area, where they’re stacked in a wall, which means Sheehan doesn’t have to bend down to check them.
Photo: Joel Pitra /DD Reps
Past the kitchen (left) is a pantry and through it is a small office, painted pink, where Jessie Sheehan wrote four cookbooks. Behind the fish painting is a large office (not pictured) where the kids did homework and Matt had a desk. Between the two offices and under the stairs is what the family called a “secret room,” a space where the kids could hide or get some quiet.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
A Sheehan dinner party starts with cocktails up here, but the roof is also practical. A massive skylight helps light the living space downstairs, and solar (not visible) offsets electric bills. When Matt Sheehan lived here, he made the switch from working as an environmental coordinator at a school to founding an urban farm, Edgemere, on an abandoned lot in Rockaway.
Photo: Joel Pitra /DD Reps
One level down are four bedrooms, each sized about the same but with moldings painted a different shade of blue or green. “It’s all very democratic,” observed Greg McHale, their broker. Jessie Sheehan loved that observation, but had a simpler explanation: “We’re not lounge-around-the-bedroom people,” she said. “I do not know how to nap.”
Photo: Joel Pitra /DD Reps
Through the primary suite is a walk-through closet with storage made of the reclaimed joists and, past it, a bathroom with double sinks and the same Heart Pine flooring.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
A free-standing tub over the same tile as a shower (right) means anyone can take a soak, then rinse off without dripping on the wooden floors. “Everything is simple and elegant,” said Greg McHale, the broker. “Nothing is overbuilt and overdone. It’s really really subtle.”
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The bedrooms for the couple’s two sons are almost identical and look over the same view of the backyard, but have different color trim.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The second kid’s bedroom.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
Next to the primary suite is a guest bedroom. The trunk was a gift from Matt Sheehan’s mother on his 16th birthday.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
A laundry room sits next to the guest bedroom. Architect Rafe Churchill pointed out laundry is more practical on the bedroom level to avoid carrying loads up and down stairs. “To me, that was like a revelation,” said Jessie Sheehan.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The basement is instead devoted to what was once a playroom, then became a space where the kids did art projects and practiced drums. It’s now staged with their old toys.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The basement is also home to a gym. “Maybe it’s because I have to eat sugar and butter all day, but I’m a Peloton person,” said Jessie Sheehan.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
Off the vestibule is a one-bedroom apartment with the same Heart Pine flooring as the rest of the house. Broker Greg McHale suggests that it could remain a rental, or a future owner might use it for visitors or even combine it with the rest of the house upstairs.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The rental unit’s kitchen, with marble countertops.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
The bedroom in the rental unit looks out onto a private backyard.
Photo: Joel Pitra/DD Reps
