A London-Bred Fashion Pro Lands In A Brooklyn Brownstone

Light, natural light, is like water. Elemental and essential. But as it doesn’t come out of a tap or a bottle, it is not ours to control. Sometimes subtle, sometimes overpowering, sometimes barely present, it is a vital if unpredictable partner in any design scheme.

Natural light can be elusive in the deep spaces of a Brooklyn brownstone, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the Fort Greene residence of Marysia Woroniecka, where kitchen, parlor and dining room can be awash in wonderful rays. It helps that the London-bred fashion publicist (she once represented the late Vivienne Westwood, among others) has chosen to envelop these with white-painted walls.

A long-time business partner of designer Maria Cornejo, Woroniecka moved to Brooklyn from a loft on 27th and Broadway in Manhattan. Although it was nice seeing the Empire State Building from her bedroom window, she grew weary of the hyper street scene. Her then-husband had lived previously in Fort Greene, so the couple headed across the river and started poking around for a home with a tad less urban energy swirling around it. “I fell in love with the neighborhood, and we eventually found this house – one of the smallest on the block, but one of the best blocks in the area.”

Although Woroniecka’s 19th-century home is blessed with high ceilings, parquet flooring and decorative millwork, its previous owner (who lived to be 101) had resided there for over 40 years, so the place needed considerable attention, which included updating the electrical and plumbing and installing a new kitchen. They didn’t fuss much with the configuration of the spaces but did transform a closet into a powder room.

Working without an interior designer, Woroniecka has created a highly personal home, one that reads well done but not rigorously arranged. A testament to her fondness for flea markets, art galleries and singular shops, it is engagingly populated with a variety of furniture and objects, from a Fornasetti table lamp and a vase by artist Kara Walker to fabrics from Mombasa, Kenya and a photo of Charlie Watts by Enrique Badulescu.

A Regency-style side chair is partnered with a barley twist pedestal table. A humble kitchen cabinet of the 1930s is right at home in a spruced-up bathroom. The dining room is set with a table by Ilse Crawford for De La Espada and classic Norman Cherner chairs. A gilt rococo mirror – from her mother’s house in London – hangs above the original marble mantel in the parlor, and vintage Moroccan rugs are found upstairs and down.

But down the road, well, things may travel. “I feel comfortable living with things for a while and then not being afraid to move them around when a spot feels right,” relates Woroniecka, who has recently done a major rehanging of her art. “Once in a while, I decide that I need a new piece of furniture, but when it comes to art or decorative objects, it is always because I find something I love first and then find a spot for it.” And she has, beautifully.

Photography by Marco Bertolini.

For more like this Brooklyn brownstone, be sure to check out this Park Slope beauty.

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