Art Deco Remodel Puts Owners in NY State of Mind

ALBANY, NY —
The view from the top can be really sweet, and in the case of a completely overhauled 1960s ranch house located here, this is particularly true.

In fact, the views are what drove the design of the entire remodel.

“The whole idea of the design for the house was built around the views,” explains designer Joe Hochberg, president and founder of Millbrook Custom Kitchens in Nassau, NY, just outside of the Empire State capital. He and his wife bought this house, which is also just outside of the capital, because of the spectacular views they knew they could have. It overlooks the city, plus three mountain ranges. “It had the best views in the area.”

However, to frame those views the house needed some major renovations. “It was built in the 1960s, but it was never remodeled,” reports Hochberg. “We had specific desires for this home, so we had to gut the entire thing, and take it back to the studs. We moved walls and ceilings, and we even added windows to the basement. That’s how extensive this remodel was for us.”

When it was completed two years later, they had exactly what they wanted: a house whose every room captured a spectacular upstate vista – enough to truly put them in a New York state of mind, just as the song says.

AUTHENTIC ART DECO

Since the Hochbergs gutted the entire house, they had carte blanche when it came to defining the footprint of what became the new kitchen, dining room and enclosed hot tub/bar area.

“We weren’t hampered by existing windows and doors,” Hochberg notes. “The most important thing to us was capturing the views. Thus, we knew that the kitchen needed to be laid out around them.”

He began with a space measuring 65' long, and installed floor-to-ceiling windows on one long wall. He then turned his focus on the kitchen’s footprint. “We knew we wanted a refrigerator and an oven at an angle at each end of the kitchen. We have a similar set-up in our house on Lake George, but this time we wanted these two appliances at either end with the cooktop in the middle as the focal point.”

The couple chose a Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezer, a KitchenAid dishwasher, a stacked, stainless steel DCS microwave oven, oven and warming drawer, and a six-burner, stainless steel, gas DCS cooktop.

Next, Hochberg wanted to apply an Art Deco look to the majority of the house, including the kitchen, the adjacent dining room and enclosed hot tub/bar area, as well as the master bath. This look – what he terms “a more authentic Art Deco style” – is the latest concept he’s been perfecting.

Back in the 1970s Hochberg created the concept of the “Curved Kitchen Design,” and was inducted into the National Kitchen & Bath Hall of Fame as the originator of this concept in 1999. In this case, Hochberg really wanted to make a statement with his latest Art Deco concept in the couple’s Albany home.

To that end, he designed cabinets in the Art Deco style, replete with the style’s signature curves. He paired a mahogany veneer with solid mahogany wood edges and applied a custom stain and a high-gloss polyester finish reminiscent of Art Deco styling.

Hochberg also created a new custom hood, special cut-out doors with ribbed glass and accent doors with three wood appliqués that further supported the Art Deco look.

The toe kicks, tambour door and Häfele decorative hardware are stainless steel, which pick up the stainless steel of the appliances. Blum stainless steel Tandembox with full-extension Blumotion slides complete the cabinets’ function.

The undercabinet task lights and over-cabinet accent lights are by Tresco, while the Ambience pendant lights – which pick up the redness of the cabinetry – are from Sea Gull. These sit above the peninsula, which, like the rest of the base cabinets featuring drawers and roll-outs, is topped with granite that also has some red veining that picks up the stain of the cabinets.