Elizabeth Roberts says of her style, “I gravitate toward imperfection.” Anyone who has seen her work may find this a surprising statement. Roberts, a critically acclaimed architect who has transformed homes for Maggie Gyllenhaal, Phoebe Philo muse Daria Werbowy, and fashion designer Ulla Johnson’s Brooklyn brownstone, is a regular contributor to Architectural Digest because her work is exactly the opposite: warm, restrained, airy, and healthy.
Nonetheless, there has always been an organic element to Roberts’ work, described in her new monograph, Elizabeth Roberts Architect: A Collection of Stories. She loves natural materials like oak and marble. (Lots of marble. See: Athena Calderon’s former townhouse in Cobble Hill.) Then, she has an almost miraculous knack for flooding entire living rooms with light—something that’s a rare but highly desirable thing in New York. Roberts, who grew up in Marin and studied at UC Berkeley, believes the drama of the Northern California landscape will always inspire her: “I think there’s a Northern California girl inside of me who always wanted to be close to New York City. Close. Lots of words,” she added.
Roberts also specializes in historic restorations—a must for owners of 18th- and 19th-century buildings in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. “I’ve always thought of Elizabeth as the house whisperer. She seemed able to sense the invisible power of a project’s past: how beloved, unloved, or misunderstood a structure was, and what was needed to give it new life. It should be,” Wendy Goodman writes in the book’s introduction. “Elizabeth built character and purpose into a space that brought comfort, ease, relaxation, and joy first and foremost.” Transforming a parking lot into a sculpture garden in SoHo and the Brooklyn Museum.
Before the book was published, Roberts shared one of his never-before-seen projects with Askew: a Catskill Mountain house in Roscoe, New York. Like most of his projects, it has a rich story behind it—the property features a centuries-old wall that sparked Roberts’ imagination. “These walls, which are more than 200 years old, are made from agricultural waste,” he said. “The house I designed suited them because the views were in the right direction.” A smooth, streamlined structure that slopes from ancient tumbled stone to the hills and lake.
