Inside Watermark Designs President Avi Abel’s Modern-Meets-Traditional Park Slope Kitchen

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The kitchen features a 13-foot island and 5-foot stainless steel sink. Porcelain wraps the counter and extends onto the floor around the custom white oak and painted cabinetry. Photo by Francis Dzikowski/OTTO

By

May 3, 2021

“Our kitchen is our most used room and the nucleus of the entire house,” says Avi Abel, president of Watermark Designs, the Brooklyn-based manufacturer of luxury kitchen and bath faucets.

“I love how we can gather around the island, with the sink and faucets at its center, and have the entire family there eating, cooking, or doing dishes. It’s a space where we can all get together at the end of the day and talk for a while before everyone gets busy again.”

Avi, his wife, their three kids (ages 14, 11, 7), and even the Aussiedoodle Joni (named after Joni Mitchell) are often in the kitchen—their teenage son doing homework on his laptop at the island and Joni just steps away, lying on the floor precisely at the intersection of where the marble tile crosses over into wood.

It makes Avi smile, proud of the 1800s Park Slope brick townhouse that he, his family, and baao (Barker Associates Architecture Office) gutted and brought back to life.

The house is a bit of a showpiece for Watermark Designs, as Avi incorporated Watermark’s TOD and Urbane 25 collections in the kitchen for a take on modern meets traditional.

It’s an accurate reflection of who Avi and his wife are as a couple.

“I’m much more modern and contemporary; she’s much more traditional. We wanted to mix and match materials and aesthetics,” he says.

Buy It: Available at Watermark Designs

 

A version of this article originally appeared in Sixtysix Issue 06 with the headline “Watermark House.” Subscribe today.

 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Studio Sixtysix
Photos by Francis Dzikowski/OTTO
Words by Laura Rote
Studio Sixtysix is the in-house creative agency to Sixtysix magazine. Studio Sixtysix stories are conceived, produced, and edited by Studio Sixtysix.