Now that the "rustic" aesthetic of "young" "hip" "Brooklynites" has become the look of global youth culture, and even your mid-sized Midwestern hometown has a new "saloon" called The Mason Jar that your parents think is "cool," it's unclear what self-consciously homespun-seeming Brooklyn establishments are even trying to cater to these days. In May, Manhattan real estate developer Lyon Porter opened Urban Cowboy, the first bed and breakfast in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a space that distills this yearning for an imagined past into scarcely seen levels of BoHo-chic finery. Porter tells Remodelista, he was aiming to capture "an industrial Williamsburg/Adirondack cowboy sensibility." Is the final product stylishly rough-hewn? You bet your felt Panama hat.
Lyon detailed the construction process with Architectural Digest last month: inviting friends to the modest family home he had acquired, presenting them with "sledgehammers and beer," and having at the linoleum and dropped ceilings. Designer Renee Mee helped him outfit the interior with scavenged pot belly stoves, deer antler chandeliers, free-standing clawfoot tubs, and the like, mostly from secondhand furniture depots, and of course, Etsy (whose HQ they are effectively giving a run for its money in the rusticity department). Below, tour the suites—which have names like the Dreamcatcher, Vision Quest, and Full Cowboy, and run from $100 to $2,000 a night—and keep an eye peeled for the repurposed vintage gramophone horn:
· Urban Cowboy: A Williamsburg Clubhouse for Nomads [Remodelista]
· Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Gets Its First Bed and Breakfast [Arch Digest]