It's easy to assume that Paul Feldsher and Gary Petersen's 1890s apartment in Brooklyn is the handiwork of design professionals. With 14-foot ceilings and massive stained-glass windows, the 4,000-square-foot space feels more like a cathedral than a New York City apartment. The decor is equally dramatic. An oil portrait from 18th-century Prague leans against graphic 1950s wallpaper in the guest room; in the children's room, a modernist rocking chair sits between a Chippendale dresser and a giant painted-metal choir angel from a turn-of-the-century stage production.
But the idea that there was any governing scheme or even a modicum of forethought to the placement of objects—other than occasionally raising breakables above toddler height—makes Feldsher and Petersen, the sleep-deprived parents of 20-month-old twins, Lev and Esther, laugh a little too hard. "There was no plan, no design, no premeditation," insists Feldsher as Esther climbs onto his lap, clutching a favorite copy of Wheels on the Bus.
Feldsher, a writer and former film producer, was born in Brooklyn, then moved to Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, Paris, and London before returning to his hometown. He was in contract to buy another place when he heard that a historic gentleman's club in the Park Slope neighborhood was refashioning an entire floor into a private residence. As he toured the rooms, it wasn't the wraparound terrace or the three fireplaces that sold him, but the fact that the space was perfect for a family. It had three huge bedrooms, it was all on one level (no running up and down stairs), and it was across the street from Prospect Park. He made an offer. "I knew I wanted kids one day," he says. "Getting this apartment first was very Field of Dreams."
Feldsher outfitted the massive space without buying anything new. While some people buy T-shirts on vacation, Feldsher had returned from trips and film shoots over the years with paintings, dining-room tables, puppets, and porcelain doll heads in tow. The red and white Prescriptions sign in the kids' play area was a find from Camden Market in London; a tapestry in the guest room, from a rural village in Guatemala. He has a fascination with faces, with midcentury desks, with Indian reverse glass. "But I'm not a collector of anything specific," he says. "It's more like, Wow, that's cool. I have to have that."
By contrast, Petersen, a freelance fashion photographer, can fit most of his worldly possessions inside a small, thrift-store suitcase. That suitcase—along with his many photographs, which now decorate much of the apartment—was all he arrived with when he moved in with Feldsher. They decided to start a family almost immediately. When they found out their surrogate was pregnant, Feldsher and Petersen set to work converting an extra room into a double nursery. (The year before the babies' arrival, the couple had offered the extra bedroom free of charge to Hurricane Katrina victims. Their boarders, interestingly enough, were 26-year-old twins, also a brother-sister pair.)
In renovating the twins' room, the goal was to make the space both stimulating and functional. "Gary's father came over and reframed the closets for us, which was really nice," says Feldsher, "especially since Gary had just told his family, 'I'm gay, in a relationship, and having kids,' all in about half an hour." Feldsher and Petersen then took the doors off the closets to make the children's clothes more accessible and painted the wall behind the open shelves bright blue, yellow, and red.
It was Petersen's idea to move much of the living-room furniture into the smaller, cozier dining-room space they now call the "den-ing room." It has the largest fireplace in the house and is right next to the kitchen. "I knew we'd be spending a lot of time just sitting with the babies and running to warm up bottles," says Petersen. He was right. After the twins arrived last January, "We didn't emerge for months."
Recently, Lev and Esther started driving their Big Wheels through that same room. And as the children get older, they seem to get a kick out of their dads' eclectic taste. Instead of being frightened by the large, ominous-looking stuffed raven perched in the living room, for example, "Lev stands under it shouting, 'Bird! Bird!'" says Petersen. Of course, standing and pointing is one thing—grabbing is another. "We basically play Russian roulette with our stuff," says Feldsher. "So much gets broken. Yesterday, Lev was running around with this," he says, lifting up an expensive ceramic serving tray from the 1850s. "We don't worry about it too much until they actually have it in their hands.
