This Carroll Gardens Apartment Is Home to an Array of Collected Treasures

Lauren Jones
·4 min read

Aaron Probyn and Rebecca McEvoy looked at five or six apartments, aiming to find a quaint brownstone, before landing on their two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,200-square-foot Carroll Gardens abode. “It’s in a really beautiful building with great windows and a distinct layout,” he says. “We really enjoyed Manhattan, but always gravitated toward Brooklyn. It’s greener, calmer, and there are more outdoor spaces, which is great because we have a dog.”

Aaron Probyn (left) and Rebecca McEvoy in their Carroll Gardens home.
Aaron Probyn (left) and Rebecca McEvoy in their Carroll Gardens home.

The couple, who hail from the United Kingdom and moved to Brooklyn in July 2019, have a long roster of work centered on design and interiors—Aaron having done furniture and accessory collaborations with brands like Another Country, Habitat, and IKEA, and Rebecca being an interior stylist and former style editor at Elle Decoration UK. So it makes sense that their New York apartment is designed to a T.

While Aaron leans more pragmatic and material-led in style, with a love for natural textures, Rebecca has a whimsical, playful, and eclectic aesthetic. “We both have an appreciation for design tactics and vintage pieces,” he says.

As a stylist, Rebecca is always rearranging things in the home and has a keen eye for showcasing their growing collection of souvenirs.
As a stylist, Rebecca is always rearranging things in the home and has a keen eye for showcasing their growing collection of souvenirs.

The living room features an array of collected items, including a 1940s industrial storage cabinet originally from Hungary that they found in a vintage shop. “It’s the real centerpiece of the living room,” Aaron says. But the items on its shelves stand out as well, many of which they found on their travels: the red Plant of the Apes statue purchased in Hong Kong; Japanese dolls; a zebra mask from Africa; and porcelain horses originally created for Habitat, where the couple both worked.

A Hay pendant hangs above the Artek dining table, a spot the couple have enjoyed coworking from during quarantine.

The dining room has multiple IKEA bookshelves, basic in design but something that the couple say have become staple storage pieces for them. The Artek dining table, which can seat up to 12, is surrounded by an unexpected variety of chairs, including two Wishbone numbers, a Joe Colombo plastic gem, and four Eames fiberglass stunners.

The 1940s lamp reminds Aaron of his days running a stall at Portobello Market in Notting Hill, where he would sell midcentury pieces on the weekends. Ultimately, it also helped him pay his way through university. “I realized I had quite a good eye for it,” he recalls. “I would refurbish pieces, take them apart, polish them up, and it taught me a lot about design, how things evolved and were made. I enjoyed giving things a new lease on life and it helped me later in my career.”
To juxtapose the vintage furniture and bring in something more budget-friendly, the couple went for a coffee table and cork-topped stools designed by Ilse Crawford for IKEA. “They were very affordable,” Aaron says. “For us, it’s a testament that good design can be accessible and can very happily sit among big-name pieces.”
Aaron says about the rosewood 1960s Eames chair, “Many of the modern ones were constructed in the 1980s, with less exotic woods. The leather on this one is much nicer and softer as well.”
Aaron says about the rosewood 1960s Eames chair, “Many of the modern ones were constructed in the 1980s, with less exotic woods. The leather on this one is much nicer and softer as well.”

The couple’s bedroom, which is also full of color and cherished collectibles, has a few key pieces of art framing the bed—a piece picked up on vacation on Isla Holbox, Mexico; a cheery Anthony Burrill graphic; and some art featuring Harry Styles from Print Club, a screen-printing shop in London where Rebecca once worked. “Every year, they do exhibitions and limited-edition runs, and I got this one about 10 years ago,” she remarks. Next to the bed lies one of Aaron’s most treasured pieces, a 1940s lamp. “It’s an early two-step type 1227 Anglepoise lamp, designed and engineered by George Carwardine and produced by Herbert Terry & Sons in Redditch,” he says. “It’s a great piece of British engineering and design.”

The apartment joyfully blends the couple’s unique design perspectives and is a place they see themselves continuing to decorate, rearrange, and grow as a family.

The Established & Sons low cabinet designed by Wrongwoods was a wedding present and is topped with a lamp, the Evedal for IKEA, designed by Aaron in 2018. A mahogany Eames leg splint that was developed between 1941 and 1942 for the U.S. Army, an integral invention that aided wounded soldiers, hangs above the sideboard as both an art piece and a nod to design history, something that the pair are both passionate about.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest