When the owners of a property and their collaborators can see the exact same potential in a potentially elaborate renovation, magic can happen. It is rare, but when it does happen the results can be breathtaking.

In the case of this large triplex in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the words magical and breathtaking do not refer to flashy or overwhelming. Instead, they mean the kind of elegant balance that we often call ?breathing room ? not just rooms where you can breathe but an entire milieu that makes you sigh a deep, relaxed sigh of contentment. Everything seems to be in its natural form, dimension and hue. Everything belongs.

This kind of balance is extremely difficult to achieve in a new project and even more so in the kind of highly complex renovation this project was. This is the first home, the newlyweds Kayvan Salmanpour, chief commercial officer at Boston Globe Media, and Lindsay Nelson, chief experience and brand officer at TripAdvisor, have built together. The two-year renovation and re-build process does indeed count as a true test of their marriage ? a test they clearly aced.

They selected architect Alexandra Barker of Barker Associates Architecture Office and interior designer Jae Joo of Jae Joo Designs as the professionals to help make their dreams come true.
With these collaborators, they transformed the traditional Anglo-Italianate brownstone from around 1860s, that housed several compact apartments, into their spacious four-s...