This townhouse in Greenwich Village was built in the 1790's. Due to its deteriorated condition, it had to be virtually completely re-built, with new structure inserted within three of the existing masonry walls. The setting of the house is quite unusual for New York: although there is a street entrance, the main access is through an ornamental gate leading to a court shared by four townhouses, which opens up to a private rear yard where one enters the house.

This setting allows for exploration of the duality between the street and the garden. The street facade was restored to preserve its historic character, allowing the building to blend in with the neighborhood. The rear wall presents a surprise once the courtyard is entered: taught aluminum and glass skin, which replaced the old, structurally unstable masonry, serves to both clearly signal the modernist approach to townhouse living and to let the maximum amount of light and air into the house.

The two entrances allow the house to be set up as a two-family residence. The tenant's unit is entered from the street, while the owner's unit is entered from the courtyard which is bounded by vine-covered walls of the adjacent buildings. A small fountain will be located here to mask the urban noise. This space is dominated by a generous entry stair landscaped with potted plants.

The house is small, and the traditional model of two rooms per floor with kitchens and bathrooms in the middle would have resulted in spaces that feel cramped and dark, and are not particularly suitable to the modern way of life. To create the sensation of openness, each floor is treated as a loft. Translucent materials are used wherever separation between spaces is required. The aluminum and glass rear wall, with its large sliding doors and a second floor balcony, allows the outdoor space to flow into the interior.

An open-riser steel stair, half-oval in plan, dynamically winds upward toward a small skylit interior room at the roof level. Rear-lit glass panel have been inserted into the wall enveloping the stair, allowing the owner, who is a photographer, to use the stair as a vertical gallery for her images.

The roof is developed as a private garden, loosely divided into two areas: a secluded vine-covered pergola at one end and a more open area at the other. The spatial quality of the roof terrace is defined by the overscaled architectural elements of the aluminum-clad stair bulkhead and the masonry fireplace chimneys.