Opa Architecture broke down walls, brought in color, and created "islands of design" to update an Upper East Side penthouse for a family of five.
"The playdates are always at our place," says Brianna Tsarevsky about the penthouse she and her husband, Daniel, recently renovated on New York City’s Upper East Side.
The couple previously lived in a 5,000-square-foot house with a yard in the suburbs—and their eagerness to host in a much smaller space shows just how well the renovation by Opa Architecture suits their family of five while marrying livability and personality with everything the big city has to offer.
With few exceptions, "Everything is as good as it can be," Daniel says.
Before: Entry
Before: Prior to renovating their Upper East Side penthouse, Daniel and Brianna
Tsarevsky didn’t care for the floor designs, including a large compass-shaped inlay, that
were apparent upon entering the unit.
Photo courtesy of Opa Architecture
After: Entry
The renovated entry features terrazzo tile and a miniature "mudroom" that contains
concealed cubbies for each family member.
Photo by Hanna Grankvist
The story of a home with so few compromises began when a job opportunity brought the young couple—who both have a background in law—from Montreal to the NYC metro area.
Although they fell for the city’s walkability and vast food options, their growing family prompted a move to a five-bedroom house in New Jersey. That was in 2020, so keeping some distance from Manhattan offered valuable breathing room through the worst of the pandemic. But it wasn’t long before restlessness settled in and they began to dream of a home that offered more.
"I wouldn’t say cookie-cutter…but yeah, maybe cookie-cutter is the right word," Daniel says about their suburban dwelling, admitting that the house’s lack of character led to their search for a permanent home back in Manhattan.
Before: Living/Dining Area
Before: Prior to renovation, the kitchen was walled off from the dining and living areas,
giving the unit a closed-off feel.
Built in 1829, the historic Poggensee home has a well-preserved facade and radically reenvisioned, monochromatic living spaces.
Location: Alte Dorfstrasse 25, 23896 Poggensee, Germany
Price: €1,750,000 (approximately USD $2,061,539)
Year Built: 1829
Renovation Year: 2019
Footprint: 1,969 square feet (2 bedrooms, 3 bath)
From the Agent: "The historic Smokehouse of Poggensee, dating back to 1829, stands as a masterfully preserved piece of North German architectural heritage. Thanks to a series of renovations, it blends authentic thatched architecture with uncompromising contemporary design. The home’s steep, thatched roof rises monumentally above a finely balanced half-timbered structure of brick and wood. The clear silhouette, robust materials, and authentically handcrafted details give the house a striking presence that is both historic and elegant. A comprehensive renovation and redesign transformed the property into an architectural sanctuary defined by clean lines, carefully curated materials, and a distinctive sense of space. Throughout the house, great care has been given to the selection of materials and architectural clarity. Exposed timber beams contrast beautifully with purist surfaces, handcrafted fixtures, and select fittings. The property has been extensively modernized in recent years with triple-glazed windows (2019); a modern gas heating system (2022); and a new front door, kitchen door, and main window door (2025). The combination of historic fabric and contemporary building technology provides day-to-day comfort and energy efficiency."
The historic exterior of this thatched roof cottage has been carefully preserved, while the modern interior reflects a recent renovation.
"Hyperreal natural scenes" served as source matter, leading to flame-shaped cutouts hanging from skylights, a wall of pink tie-dye tiles, and a meandering kitchen island.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect:"Named Druid Grove for its mystical and grounding qualities, the house weaves together an eclectic mix of natural and monumental elements, both fabricated and real, into material-rich spaces that feel part stage set, part sanctuary. Asked by CAN to share inspiration unrelated to architecture, the client shared their brief through a set of hyperreal natural scenes, modern steel structures, and dripping floral arrangements. The priority was to create a dynamic and open environment that maximizes natural light while bringing in an experimental yet cohesive mix of materials to create a unique and personal dwelling.
"A rear extension and removal of a central structural wall unlocked the ground floor plan, reorganizing it around a central antechamber, transformed from a dark underutilized dining area into a key introductory space. The antechamber, set with a bar, is flanked by a pair of cave-like openings concealing sliding pocket doors and setting the scene for the rough cast texture of the kitchen and dining area. The front living room is painted entirely in a creamy white to maintain visual continuity and emphasize the architectural gesture of the cave openings. Flooring consists of Douglas fir plywood panels, oiled to highlight natural texture and grain. The kitchen is transformed from a dark outrigger into an open, customized space defined by a meandering stainless-steel kitchen island.
"Adding to the feeling of exaggerated natural forms, overhead timber trusses are imagined as growing tendrils, stained pale green. Designed by CAN in collaboration with the client, the patterns were printed and traced, hand cut by the contractor on-site. Set against the gray rough cast texture of the kitchen is an elevation of custom glazed Palet tiles in varying pink and orange tones. A high gloss pale pinky-cream paint bounces light through the room. Standing sentinel to the ground floor extension in the garden is a single standing stone or ‘menhir’, a physical and symbolic anchor that provides privacy from neighboring views. Chosen by the client and architect at a stone farm in Cornwall, it was safely yet nail bitingly craned over the house and into position. Last moved by the glacier that deposited it 15,000 years ago, this ancient rock adds to the cave-like sense of protection and enclosure, standing in contrast to the spacey steel canopy of the patio. The stone’s presence sets the tone for the home’s connection to nature: elemental, experimental, and entirely personal."
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, two architects designed a turquoise house with an office and connected apartment that’s surprisingly referential to its context.
In 2019, Sara L’Esperance and Michael Putman’s nearly 10 years in London were coming to an end. With plans to grow their family, and feeling nostalgic for their nature-filled childhoods in Canada, they accepted an offer for Michael to teach at a university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, relocating to the small but lively maritime city on Canada’s Atlantic coast.
Sara L’Esperance and Michael Putman, cofounders of the architecture firm SUPERBLK Studio, designed a flexible forever home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with three distinct programs: a rentable town house, an office for their architecture studio, and their family home.
After a few years in a rental, where they had their daughter, the couple, who founded the architecture firm SUPRBLK Studio in 2018, were ready to create a more permanent home, one that ideally was flexible enough to support them for decades to come. The result is two buildings with three distinct programs: the structure along the street contains a 680-square-foot town house the family rents out and uses to host guests, but also has an office and bedrooms that make up part of the main home; these spaces connect with the structure at the rear via a landscaped courtyard, which has a kitchen and living and dining rooms. Between the front and rear structures, the family’s space amounts to 2,485 square feet.
A yellow door marks the entrance to the family’s home, while one to the town house blends with the turquoise facade.
The city’s gridded streets are lined with colorful timber homes dating to the late 1800s. An influx of residents post-Covid created a flood of new buildings that, to Sara and Michael’s eyes, desaturate the historic vernacular. "You’re starting to see a loss of color, more gray and beige and things that are trying not to stand out," says Michael. "They’re just trying to disappear." With a turquoise, yellow, and silver facade, the house they designed certainly does not disappear, yet its bold moves aren’t just for fun—they are also rooted in Halifax’s traditional architecture.
In their architectural practice as in their home, Sara and Michael are interested in creating spaces within spaces. The kitchen, for example, has a plywood volume that’s pulled in from the walls, creating an object within the gable space.
Signature pieces and leftover materials from the late founder’s namesake furniture company cohabitated with him, his wife, and their three children in the same building where the line was manufactured.
Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the December 2001 issue.
The Heltzers of Ravenswood, Chicago,have the kind of unconventional lifestyle that might belong to the characters in a John Irving novel. However, instead of residing in a ramshackle hotel or a boarding school, they live in a furniture factory.
Actually, the three-story brick building was built in the 19th century to house a candy factory, with a small orchard next door to supply homegrown cherry flavor. It is one of a string of industrial buildings, all past their prime, stretched out along a railroad line that used to carry freight but is now mostly used by commuter trains. Michael Heltzer, 40, a furniture designer and manufacturer, purchased the building from the Chicago Historical Society in 1987. When he moved in, the former orchard was a vacant lot cluttered with empty Thunderbird and MD 20/20 bottles. He camped out on the third floor and began, in a modest way, to manufacture steel, concrete, and glass tables and chairs downstairs.
Today, the Heltzer factory takes up 13,000 square feet of the building, including a basement metal shop, a first-floor wood shop, and an office that occupies half of the second floor. Finished pieces are stored in a warehouse several blocks away, and are sold through a string of showrooms, most notably one in the Chicago Merchandise Mart.
The factory building also houses a floor and a half of living space (3,400 square feet) for the Heltzers and their three children, George, Rose, and Henry, who range in age from two to seven. While urbanites across America move into lofts that are often carved out of facsimiles of industrial buildings, the Heltzers live in a real factory that is still very much a factory.
Michael Heltzer started out his professional life as a lawyer at a white-shoe New York firm, Milbank Tweed. But Heltzer, whose wardrobe favors T-shirts, worn jeans, and dust-coated clogs, was not at home on Wall Street. "I knew I was in trouble when I started picking up stuff on the street and making things at night," he recalls. Eventually, he left New York behind, moved back to his native Chicago, and started taking classes at the Chicago Art Institute, while continuing to practice law.
"A teacher from the Art Institute gave me keys to his factory," Michael continues. He spent all his spare time learning how to use vintage, prewar machine tools. "I was welding, forming, bending."
Heltzer’s first product was a glass-and-stainless-steel cafe table on a concrete pedestal. Using contacts he’d made through family and friends, he sold it directly to architects and restaurant owners. "I got 6o orders the first month," Michael says. "Then I quit the law."
Today, the Heltzer line consists of over 150 products, everything from teak-covered coat hooks (they use up the scrap wood left over from larger pieces of furniture) to wall units, all linked by a shiny, stainless-steel aesthetic.
When he moved into the old factory and began the long process of restoring it, Heltzer was single. In 1991, his girlfriend, Elizabeth, a social worker, moved in and in 1993 they were married. "When I moved in, it was Michael and two people working with him downstairs," says Elizabeth, 37. "Upstairs, it was a bedroom and an open loft space."
As soon as Michael and Elizabeth started having children, they began carving rooms out of the raw space. "Henry was born in January of ’94. We needed the space to be different, so we turned a walk-in closet off the bedroom into his room. As the business started growing, more things came upstairs."
The empty loft gradually filled up with the ever growing Heltzer line of furniture.
"This was the showroom," Elizabeth says. And she remembers the old days, when potential clients would call and say they were on their way over. She and Michael would frantically clean up the mess made by a family that was growing almost as fast as the product line.
"When Rose was born, it pushed us out of the back of the building, and we moved to the front. Then the back space was for the kids." The room in the front, which was the primary bedroom, is now dominated by a sleeper sofa and a VCR. Elizabeth calls it the "late-night movie room." Hanging over the sofa is an old black-and-white scene showing some big piece of industrial equipment at work. It looks like one of Lewis Hine’s photos of heroic factory workers, but Michael says he found it in a dumpster. Today, the parental bedroom is, once again, toward the rear of the building.
The floor immediately downstairs was rented out to tenants, and when they moved out, bedrooms for the two older kids were framed and painted down there. Then George was born and a third bedroom was added.
The style of the Heltzer furniture sets the overall tone for the living space: Room dividers and stair rails are made from woven strips of mahogany that are used in the furniture line. The bathroom is tiled with hand cut pieces of aqua slate left over from the renovation of the Chicago showroom. The prototypes for the teak hooks hang on the bathroom wall. The dining table and chairs are signature Heltzer pieces in steel, glass, and wood. One of the latest products, a glass birdbath on a concrete pedestal, is out in the garden.
Downstairs, the small, brightly painted children’s rooms surround a communal playroom that is outfitted in pure Heltzer. Stainless-steel panels were custom designed for the children so they could hang up their art projects with magnets. They have their own "work" area, where small chairs surround stainless-steel tables mounted on wheels. Michael also made a series of wooden hutches for their toys and art supplies.
On a summer afternoon, the youngest, George, can be found sprawled, bottle in mouth, on a beanbag chair in front of a Sesame Street video while his older brother and sister are at day camp. Unofficially, the play area extends into the office immediately next door, where Rose often hides under the desk of the marketing manager.
From the Agent: "Welcome to a custom Northwest lodge-style retreat designed by renowned Monterey architect Roger Larson. Featuring cedar beams, soaring ceilings, and walls of glass, this timber-framed home offers seamless indoor/outdoor living. Two en suite bedrooms include their own lounge spaces and lofts, ideal for guests or multigenerational living. It’s set in a wildlife sanctuary with trails, zip lines, and a firepit just outside, plus direct access to Port Ludlow’s trail system. Minutes from the beach, marina, golf course, Inn, and Beach Club with indoor/outdoor pools, the home is a perfect base camp for all of your Olympic Peninsula adventures."
Photo by Perfect Balance Photography
French doors open the living area to a large deck.
Photo by Perfect Balance Photography
The flooring in the common areas is made from slate.
The residence, which has a granitelike texture, hovers above a gulley.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect:"91.0 is a house on a forested waterfront lot in the Gulf Island archipelago of the Canadian Pacific Northwest. The house is a suspended bridge between two naturally occurring rocky ridges, spanning over a sunken fern gully. The experience of entry begins as a path through the forest, with a discreet entrance into the house volume set into the earth. From there, as the visitor traverses the length of the house, the experience changes dramatically to that of being suspended high within the tree canopy and ends with arrival on solid ground again, but this time on the west-facing beach, with the strong presence of the pacific ocean.
"The plan is organized in two bands of program, with the intention of allowing the house to expand and contract depending on the number of inhabitants. The main wing is designed for the owners (a couple): kitchen, living room, utility spaces, and suspended bedroom. A second wing, which can be opened or closed selectively for family or guests, provides two additional bedrooms and a bunk room. The house is clad in heavy cedar blocks that received an aggressive sandblasted finish, accentuating the grain of the wood and giving it an almost geological quality. It is anticipated that over the next 100 years, rising sea levels due to climate change will flood the fern gully, giving the project an entirely different reading and character."
![<b>[CAPTION HERE INTRO’ING THE PROJECT]</b>](https://images.dwell.com/photos-6818593201364905984/7415178622541307904-medium/lessbgreatercaption-here-introing-the-projectlessbgreater.jpg)
