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Inside Mike D's Gorgeously Renovated Brooklyn Townhouse

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Photos by Michel Arnaud/Design Brooklyn

When Michael Diamond—a.k.a. Mike D, rapper, drummer, and founding member of The Beastie Boys—moved with his family from Manhattan to Brooklyn recently, he and his wife, Tamra Davis, aimed to turn a sturdy 1850s townhouse into one that accurately represented their "vernacular, sensitive, modern" aesthetic, as Diamond told the Times in spring. "Does that sound pretentious?" he continued. "Well, I'm saying we are good at responding to prevailing culture in a house." Thanks to a rather spectacular $500K renovation (a collaborative effort between Diamond, Davis, interior designer Paula Rodriguez and architects Jill and John Bouratoglou), that 3,200-square-foot house is now filled with a stylish mix of local and international furniture, repurposed antiques, whimsical wallcoverings and light fixtures, and about a zillion other notable decor details. "Music is experimental, art is experimental. Design, architecture, those are all things that are experiences. And I guess I'm always the most fascinated by things that operate on that level," Diamond tells author Anne Hellman in an interview in the forward of Design Brooklyn, (Abrams 2013), the newly released book where this townhouse (among other fascinating projects) is featured. A closer look, below:

· Inside Beastie Boy Mike D's Impeccably Decorated Townhouse [Curbed NY]
· Licensed to Grill: Mike D's Brooklyn Townhouse [NYT]
· Design Brooklyn [Abrams]