New York Brownstone 3D Model

While I was working on the New York Engine Co. 31 model, I thought about putting it in a neighborhood of brownstones. The fire station model became too large and complex to keep adding to it, so I created a new file to work on a brownstone.

After finishing the exterior of the row house, it became apparent that it needed some neighbors to look correct, so I copied the house to give it two neighbors, and then filled out the block with two commercial building shells.

That gave us three row houses to decorate, and I suggested that Lori decorate the one on the right, I would decorate the one on the left, and then we’d work together on the one in the middle.

It was interesting to see how each house developed. Doing research on the neighborhood where we found the house we based the model on, I discovered that the houses sold in the $10 million range. So we went upscale in our designs.

Number 17, Lori’s house became the home of an eccentric cat lady, with one room dedicated entirely to her cats.

Number 43, my house, became a bachelor pad for a rich entrepreneur.

When it came time to decorate the middle house, number 29, we decided to place it in the year 1929. It’s story was that it was redecorated in the Art Deco style and it has been preserved that way ever since.

With prohibition in effect in 1929, the two lower levels became the home of a secret speakeasy jazz club, while the upper three levels were the separate living space. We had a lot of fun with the Art Deco elements we found both at the 3D Sketchup web site as well as finding cool wallpaper designs on the web to feature in all the rooms.

So here’s how the 3 houses are laid out: