One West 123rd Street was designed in 1890 by Frank Hill Smith for John Dwight, owner of the company that made Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. The Dwight family lived in the house until the 1930s before yielding to a succession of unsympathetic occupancies including doctors’ offices, a sanitarium, and a synagogue. A failed attempt to convert the structure into condominium apartments in 2009 left the building in a complete state of ruin.

Since then our clients have been restoring the house to its original condition through an approach of “restoration by excavation”. The exterior scope included in-kind replacement of windows and skylights, removal of the fire escapes, and masonry restoration. We replaced all street utilities and building systems, completed missing walls, refitted bathrooms, and exposed the main stair that had been completely concealed, but most of the work involved years of painstaking paint removal followed by new faux decorative finishes. Missing features and finishes were replaced in-kind, while the introduction of non-original elements was deliberately kept to a minimum.

The two-story annex, added in the 1940s, was converted into a library for the owners’ collection of over 10,000 books. The lower level is fitted out with salvaged bookshelves, while a minimalist Scandinavian shelving system on the upper level establishes a foil to the historic interiors next door.

The house and its owners were featured in a New York Times article titled “A Story of Love and Obsession” dated December 30, 2021.

Architect: PBDW Architects (Samuel G. White)

MEP-FP Engineer: Rodkin Cardinale Consulting Engineers, P.C.

Structural Engineer: Anastos Engineering Associates

Code Consultant: Design 2147, Ltd.

Photographer: Jonathan Wallen

Lucy G. Moses Award, New York Landmarks Conservancy, 2022

“A Story of Love and Obsession,” The New York Times

“How an 1890 Townhouse Was Brought Back From Near-Ruin”, New York Magazine