How This Stunning Brooklyn Townhouse Became a Forever Family Home

 As the saying goes, it’s the journey, not the destination. The domestic goddess behind lifestyle site Eye Swoon, and husband Victor, music producer and techno DJ, their journey brought them to a superb destination: a 25-foot-wide Greek Revival townhouse in historic Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

Rewind to 1996 and The Limelight, New York’s legendary nightclub, housed in a Gothic-style deconsecrated church, where Victor first laid eyes on Athena, then a young bartender. A basement apartment in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, set the stage for the next phase of courtship, quarters so cozy they shared a twin Murphy bed. “That’s love,” Athena jokes. By 1998 the two were engaged and exploring Dumbo, then an undeveloped neighbourhood with not so much as a grocery store.

“People thought we were crazy,” she says. Victor chimes in with a chuckle: “Our families were like, ‘You can go to Staten Island and get a house with property!’ ” They borrowed the money to purchase a loft, and so began the cycle of renovating and selling their homes though, Athena insists, “we weren’t flippers. The reason we became serial movers is because our needs kept changing.” When their son, Jivan, now 15, was born, they wanted another room, and so on.

“Each time we amplified our space, it also amplified my interest in design,” Athena says, admitting that one early apartment was so stark that when Madonna, who was collaborating with Victor at the time, visited, she asked, “Where is all your furniture?” With each new home, however, the spaces became more nuanced and layered. Eventually Athena enrolled at Parsons to study interior design, and in 2012 she launched a blog, EyeSwoon. “Cooking, decorating, and entertaining gave me a way to bring people together in my home,” she says. 

The Cobble Hill place is the eighth home the couple have done together. “I’d reached a point in my confidence level where I didn’t want a developer choosing my bathroom fixtures and base moldings,” Athena says. “I was like, ‘Come on, Vic, let’s do a townhouse.’ ” Victor, accustomed to the openness of loft living, thought townhouses were “dark and narrow.” He told his wife, “If we do it, it needs to be a wide one,” which, he adds, “made it really tough within our budget.”

The house they found had been broken up into separate units, and only three of the four tenants would grant access. “The parlor floor, which is the floor you want to see the most, was like, ‘Sorry, not a good day,’ ” he recalls. While the brokers tried to negotiate entry, he texted Athena. “I was like, ‘Babe, this is it. I’m blown away. We have to figure out a way to make it work.’ I’m texting and walking,” he continues, “and the next thing I know, I slam my head into this shelf with a nail sticking out and split my head open. The brokers start screaming. My broker was like, ‘Call an ambulance!’ The other broker was like, ‘You’re bleeding on the floor!’ ” An ambulance arrived, and he was told he needed stitches. “Vic’s like, ‘I just want to see the parlor floor!’ ” says Athena, laughing. “We were real committed. I mean, a 25-footer? We weren’t letting it go.” Adds Victor: “I walk back in with my head bandaged, and turn to the broker and say, ‘I bled for this home. You need to make this happen.’