{"id":782868,"date":"2026-05-08T22:10:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/782868\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T22:10:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:10:42","slug":"an-eccentric-victorian-stuffed-into-a-west-village-walk-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/782868\/","title":{"rendered":"An Eccentric Victorian Stuffed into a West Village Walk-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n An 1880s tenement, reimagined in the Victorian style of the era\u2019s upper crust.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

In 1998, Brian Coleman and his partner bought a teensy former tenement apartment on West 10th Street \u2014 an ideal pied-\u00e0-terre for a couple from Seattle looking for a place to throw down their suitcases. At least, that was the plan. Coleman ended up spending a decade and thousands of dollars stripping paint, sourcing antiques, and wallpapering or trompe l\u2019oeil\u2013ing every square inch. \u201cYou\u2019d think with a small 350-square-foot space, How much can you get in?\u201d says Coleman, who is now selling after nearly 30 years. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot you can do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Every living room needs a mouse with a pizza.
\n Photo: Adriane Quinlan\n <\/p>\n

And Coleman did a lot. The building dates to the 1880s<\/a>, when the upper crust was embracing the Victorian aesthetic movement<\/a> with its maximalist parlors stuffed with spindly furnishings, gilt frames, and pattern-on-pattern-on-pattern. In the living room, Coleman added gold paint to an original marble fireplace, stained wood floors a deeper shade of brown, and took modern glass out of the window frames in favor of wavy antique panes. Crown moldings were painted a deep green, and so was wainscoting, designed to frame panels of 1890s linoleum. At auction, he bought a pair of gold silk curtains that had been shown at the Japanese pavilion of the 1893 Chicago World\u2019s Fair, then moved to one of Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s offices, and flew in his favorite draper to fit them perfectly. Then there\u2019s the ceiling, where a trompe l\u2019oeil painter put in a pattern of sunbursts modeled after a Minton tile<\/a>. On a corner of a built-in settee just off the fireplace, Coleman asked for painted grotesques, similar to some he had spotted in a British sanatorium, then added a realistic painting of a mouse-size mouse eating a few crumbs of pizza. \u201cThe main thing was to make it fun and whimsical,\u201d says Coleman. \u201cI am a firm believer in Victorian excess.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n The furnished living room with Roosevelt\u2019s curtains.
\n Photo: William Wright\n <\/p>\n

A psychiatrist by profession, Coleman spent the 1990s immersed in splendorous antiques as he slowly turned his 1906 Arts and Crafts\u2013style home in Seattle into a pseudo-Victorian,<\/a> eventually adding a turret painted with the phrase Quo Amplius Eo Amplius, or \u201cMore is More.\u201d The home is now a local landmark, and Coleman\u2019s obsession turned into a side gig<\/a> editing Old House Journal. He has since written 23 books<\/a> on the decorative arts \u2014 a job that has taken him from a French ch\u00e2teau owned by a family firm that makes the world\u2019s finest linens<\/a> to Sedona, where he\u2019s now photographing mansions for his next book. \u201cIt\u2019s a very dangerous profession,\u201d he jokes. \u201cYou see all these beautiful homes and you start wanting what they have for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Price:<\/strong> $700,000 ($1,238 in monthly maintenance)<\/p>\n

Specs: <\/strong>1 bedroom, 1 bath<\/p>\n

Extras: <\/strong>Roof-garden access; laundry, storage and bike-parking in building<\/p>\n

10-minute walking radius: <\/strong>Julius\u2019 bar, Rosemary\u2019s, Citarella<\/p>\n

Listed by:<\/strong> Taylor Bos, Douglas Elliman\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

In New York, trips to the Chelsea Flea turned up a 1920s stove with a trompe l\u2019oeil green marble finish and a brass butler\u2019s sink. They\u00a0ended up in the small kitchen, where Victorian drawer pulls and knobs elevate modern wood cabinets, framed by Sanderson wallpaper. The microwave is hidden by double doors framing tiny portraits of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron. And the ceiling isn\u2019t pressed tin; it\u2019s historically accurate copper, which Coleman found to be too shiny. So he had it glazed with a thin sage green. \u201cThese are things you do not see at any price point,\u201d says his broker, Taylor Bos, who pointed to about a dozen other examples of Coleman\u2019s obsessive details: outlets with hammered-copper plates, a sink from a Victorian schoolhouse, 1870s door hinges with teensy pagoda finials that swing open to show a Japanese geisha and her paramour. Above the bedroom door, a rectangular glass transom window centers on a rondelle of stained glass carved to show a finch on a branch. And then Bos jiggles a brass pole and the window lifts open like magic \u2014 or, rather, like transom windows were designed to flip open, before we sealed them shut or pulled them out completely.<\/p>\n

Tours of the small space have lasted as long as 45 minutes. \u201cThe longer you\u2019re here, the more you pick up on things,\u201d says Bos. On the way out, he shows an antique peephole, which swings to the side to reveal a trompe l\u2019oeil eye staring back, then closes the door and demonstrates how to use the doorbell. It twists, like a key in a lock, and makes a bell-like clang. \u201cI just love that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\n The Irish phrase \u201cMay The Hinges of Friendship Never Rust\u201d is painted around the living-room ceiling in a style meant to mimic the Godfrey Sykes tiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum\u2019s dining hall.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n The windows between rooms are a feature of tenements, where landlords were forced to improve airflow. The unit had the transom windows and original walls when Coleman first saw it \u2014 a rarity.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The ceiling is pressed copper with a green glaze. The 1920s stove was restored and now has a working gas range and electric oven. The painted glass depicting Shakespeare and Byron hides a microwave.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n A built-in bench modeled on one that Coleman saw in a museum show of decorative arts from the Arts and Crafts movement, which overlaps with the Victorian aesthetic movement.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n The bedroom. Coleman replaced a modern accordion door with an arched antique door.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n Paintings by the artist Candace Cole fill the back bedroom walls and the door of the bathroom. The Victorians considered storks to be symbols of good luck, Coleman says, and put them throughout.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The 1870s door hinge to the bathroom shows a scene from Japan and has finials carved to look like spinning pagodas.
\n Photo: Adriane Quinlan\n <\/p>\n

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\n Victorian tile of sunflowers in the shower stall are surrounded by hand-cut mosaic, inspired by the city\u2019s subway stations. \u201cBut a clean subway station,\u201d he says.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n A schoolhouse sink designed for a tiny corner and an antique corner cabinet.
\n Photo: Daniel Osborne\n <\/p>\n

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\n Sanderson wallpaper in the kitchen.
\n Photo: Adriane Quinlan\n <\/p>\n

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\n Gold-leaf foil backs a glass cabinet with painted portraits of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron and antique hardware. It hides a microwave.
\n Photo: Adriane Quinlan\n <\/p>\n

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