Recently we had a chance to visit the Brooklyn home that is the first New York City project to be featured on This Old House. The Prospect Heights house, built in 1904 and "designed in the Renaissance Revival style by architect Axel Hedman," has its own project page on the TOH website, and before homeowners Karen Shen and Kevin Costello purchased it, the 4,000 square foot structure was a rundown boarding house. This Old House producer Deborah Hood explained why the show picked the Shen/Costello home:
At This Old House, we probably considered about a dozen properties in Brooklyn, and scouted a few in places like Boerum Hill (where I got flea bites from touring an abandoned rowhouse) and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens (where we found charming, small rowhouses protected by single-family zoning). But, ultimately, we were drawn to the neighborhood of Prospect Heights, because unlike neighboring Park Slope where most houses have already been renovated, our area still has lots of properties that need attention and preservation... more ›