Winston-Salem, NC – March 30, 2009 – WINSTON-SALEM, NC – New York city streets and the foothills of North Carolina have come together in a restored 100-year old brownstone row house in Brooklyn’s historic Prospect Heights neighborhood.

Pine Hall Brick, America’s Premier Paver®, partnered this winter with the Emmy-winning PBS home improvement series This Old House and helped with the landscaping of the show’s New York City project, the renovation of a 1904 Renaissance Revival brownstone located in Brooklyn’s historic Prospect Heights neighborhood. Pine Hall Brick provided its classic Pathway Red brick pavers, produced near Madison, N.C. The This Old House New York City project airs Thursday nights at 8pm on PBS. (check www.thisoldhouse.com/tvschedule or your local listings for airtimes.)

The project, which marks the first time that This Old House has taken on a renovation in New York City, is turning a three-story, nine-room boarding house into a home for owners Kevin Costello, Karen Shen and their three young sons.

The couple’s home has a new backyard that happens to look old. Privacy fencing and a low retaining wall, coupled with a decorative iron arbor and a new patio made of clay brick pavers provide a visual link from the ground up to the classic brickwork on the back of the row house.

As the construction has gone on, the homeowners have been closely following the progress, either on-site or online.

Kevin Costello, writing on his blog, said: “It gives me such great joy to be in the back yard―or watch on the webcam. The back of the house was so beautifully stripped and repointed, the windows replaced, the backyard totally landscaped and the bricks masterfully laid on the patio by Bob of Chelsea Garden Center. It has become a place of reverence for Karen and me.”

But getting there was a challenge. The producers of This Old House have more experience than most - three decades, in fact - in both the pleasure and the pain of renovating old houses. This build, with the episodes scheduled for late winter and early spring, meant that the springtime-ready patio had to be done in mid-December, a time in New York which can mean a bracing breeze or a full-blown blizzard.

With snowfall in the forecast, Pine Hall Brick’s distributor, Abbey Hart Brick Co. in Piscataway, New Jersey, and sales showroom, 25th Street Masonry, moved quickly to get approximately 1,500 brick pavers delivered to the job site on time.

There was no alley, so instead of being delivered directly to the backyard by a forklift, the bricks were delivered to the street in front of the home and carried by hand through the house. Expert installers from Chelsea Garden Center laid the patio in a herringbone pattern.

Deborah Hood, producer of This Old House, said that over the years, the show has juggled production schedules, added outdoor heaters and even built tents over the top of houses to get the filming done on time despite the weather. Given that this project is geared to converting a boardinghouse into a family home, making sure that the backyard was done well was a high priority.

“The backyard space has been important to the homeowners since day one,” said Hood. “Using Pine Hall pavers, the landscape crew created a beautiful and functional space where the homeowners will entertain. It’s an added bonus that they wanted to use period-appropriate materials to create a look that won’t become dated over the years.”

Ted Corvey, paver director for Pine Hall Brick, said it’s planned that way.

”Genuine clay brick pavers combine a green product that’s beautiful and durable enough to stand up to anything, from an 18-wheeler to the freezes and thaws of a New York winter,” said Corvey. “A brick sidewalk or patio installed today will indeed still be there 100 years from now.”

The house has some history behind it: It was designed by architect Axel Herman, whose designs are sought after in Brooklyn. In addition, the house is being considered as part of a proposed Prospect Heights Historic District by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to This Old House.

The plan is to make the outside of the three-story brownstone, which was designed in the Renaissance Revival style, look as much as possible as it did when it was originally built, by patching it and repainting it.

Inside, the renovation team is keeping as much of the ornate interior as possible. The homeowners were particularly fortunate, Hood said, because the house wasn’t gutted over the years. There’s still oak and bird’s-eye maple wainscoting, Italianate archways, massive crown molding and floor-to-ceiling cabinetry.

Once completed, Kevin, Karen and their sons plan to reside in part of the garden level and the first and second stories, setting aside some of the remaining space for two rental apartments.

“As with many old houses, space is at a premium, so it was important to expand the living space into the backyard with the patio,” said Hood. “Small urban gardens and backyards were important to the homeowners when these houses were built – and they’re important today when these houses are being renovated.”

About This Old House: Since its debut in 1979, This Old House has remained the highest-rated home improvement series in television history. Over the course of 29 years, audiences have turned to This Old House for expert advice on restoration, design, and renovation.

The pioneer home improvement series currently boasts 79 Emmy nominations and 16 Emmy Awards, and continues to be the most-nominated television series for the Outstanding Lifestyle Program category.

Contact: Dawn Newell, Senior Account Executive, WGBH Boston, 617-300-5344 and dawn_newell@wgbh.org.

About Pine Hall Brick: Founded in 1922, Pine Hall Brick is America’s largest producer of clay brick pavers from plants in North Carolina and Georgia. Pine Hall Brick clay pavers have been used in installations ranging from Walt Disney facilities in Florida, California and Hong Kong, to college campuses like the University of Southern California, Johns Hopkins and Ball State University, to national landmarks like LaFayette Park and Arlington National Cemetery, to historic renovations at the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC and historic neighborhoods in Savannah, Ga., Richmond, Va., and Durham, NC. Pine Hall Brick clay pavers have gained a reputation as “America’s Premier Paver™” and are “earth friendly and naturally green.”™

For more information, please visit www.PineHallBrick.com or call 1-800-334-8689. Contact: Marc Barnes, Director of Public Relations, King’s English LLC at (336) 574-0304, ext. 17, or marc@thekingsenglish.com.

##

Download images that go with this story

Pine Hall Brick's pavers were used in the patio. (4,114K) - download