The ground floor leads to a kitchen and dining area that opens onto the backyard with an accordion-style glass window. Stairs lead up to bedrooms or down to a sauna and cold plunge.
Photo: Interiors by Kat
When Joseph Giacona moved into a four-story Victorian in the Rockaways in 2017, windows were boarded, the plumbing barely functioned, and the place smelled of cat pee. It was a gut job. But doing the work in winter was a nightmare: There was no heat and not even insulation. So Giacona bought a sauna imported from Finland. “Right away, it gave me a place to hang out,” he said.
Which was the whole reason for buying the house. Giacona had been coming to the Rockaways for years to surf with friends, and he started wondering why he didn’t just live there. Prices were cheap after Hurricane Sandy, and he found himself driving around scouting “For Sale” signs. The house on Beach 93rd Street called out because of its location — just off the best surfing, on a street raised slightly above the flood zone. But everything else about it was a wreck. “It was a disaster,” he said.
The house dates to 1920, and it had a rough history. Past owners had broken it into separate apartments and even ran a hair salon in the basement before Giacona bought the place in 2017.
Photo: Interiors by Kat
Giacona wasn’t a contractor. He’d spent his 20s touring as a drummer with various blues bands and ended up practicing natural medicine in Williamsburg, where he also started a meditation center. He wanted a home that had the same sense of calm. “The house itself is almost like one big meditation space,” he said.
It’s also like one big spa. Next to the sauna, he added a cold plunge. A walkway outside means he can come in from surfing straight to an outdoor shower in the back that’s completely hidden from neighbors. A Japanese soaking tub was added upstairs just off an entertainment room, so he could unwind there while watching a movie on a pull-down projector. And on the top floor, a garret with a quiet bedroom and a hangout area, he added a rain shower that isn’t walled in glass. “I just wanted a big, wet bathroom,” he said.
The big, wet bathroom.
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20 minutes in the sauna (right) followed by a cold plunge (left) are Giacona’s “hot and cold therapy.”
Photo: Interiors by Kat
He was inspired by Japanese wabi-sabi — the tradition of elevating the broken or mismatched, like bonding broken pottery with lines of gold. A kitchen backsplash was pieced together with swimming-pool tile; the concrete countertop includes chunks of sea glass; bumpy riverstones floor the rain shower; and salvaged old windows were hung together to wall off a bedroom. Extra cedar from a project in the backyard ended up on the outside of the sauna, where he laid it out in the pattern of waves then added little wooden gulls. “It became this insane art project,” he said. So did everything, down to a front door from a 1950s speakeasy and windows he patterned with stained glass. One shows the image of a Buddha, another was designed after Picasso’s “Cote d’Azur,” and shutters over the soaking tub include colored glass shapes that are semi-autobiographical (a Buddha and a pig that references his father’s nickname for the house back when it was a teardown). “Every little detail is over the top,” said the broker Olivia Ionescu. “It’s handmade — but well made.” Which matches the vibe of the Rockaways. “It’s not the Hamptons,” she said. “We’re going to have reggae at the launch party.”
Price: $1.995 million
Specs: Four bedrooms, three bathrooms
Extras: Backyard, front yard, front porch, balcony, terrace, sauna, cold plunge, rain shower, outdoor shower, sunroom, laundry, ice-maker, soundproof music studio, basement, driveway, roof deck.
10-minute walking radius: Rockaway Beach, Rippers, Uma’s, Zingara Vintage
Listed by: Olivia Ionescu, Corcoran
The front door is from Portugal. Its tiny window opens and closes shut like an operable window in a speakeasy.
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The door leads to an open living space. With visions of “a floor sofa almost like a Moroccan sitting room,” Giacona ended up splurging on a Roche Bobois sectional. “I was like, Oh, I’m out of my range.”
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The Buddha poster that Giacona hung in the gutted living area inspired the window he installed later — a custom piece by the stained-glass craftsman Patrick Clark. From left: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
The Buddha poster that Giacona hung in the gutted living area inspired the window he installed later — a custom piece by the stained-glass craftsman P…
The Buddha poster that Giacona hung in the gutted living area inspired the window he installed later — a custom piece by the stained-glass craftsman Patrick Clark. From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
The open-plan room leads straight to glass doors that open, accordion style, to a back deck and rear yard.
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Opposite that sitting area is a kitchen, which Giacona redid completely. The tile backsplash was pieced together from tiles sold for swimming pools. A concrete countertop contains flecks of sea glass. From left: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
Opposite that sitting area is a kitchen, which Giacona redid completely. The tile backsplash was pieced together from tiles sold for swimming pools. A…
Opposite that sitting area is a kitchen, which Giacona redid completely. The tile backsplash was pieced together from tiles sold for swimming pools. A concrete countertop contains flecks of sea glass. From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
Off the kitchen, the back deck got an upgrade with more custom stained glass by Patrick Clark. Just out of frame is an outdoor shower and a spot to wash and store surfboards. From left: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
Off the kitchen, the back deck got an upgrade with more custom stained glass by Patrick Clark. Just out of frame is an outdoor shower and a spot to wa…
Off the kitchen, the back deck got an upgrade with more custom stained glass by Patrick Clark. Just out of frame is an outdoor shower and a spot to wash and store surfboards. From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
The bathroom in the rear of the ground floor looks out onto the outdoor shower.
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The side passage leads straight back so anyone coming from the beach can rinse off before going inside. A landscaper dug the yard down five feet and put in layers of absorbing materials to soak up any storm water quickly.
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The yard. A landscape architect helped Giacona put in native plants, including a bamboo that’s native to the Rockaways and chokeberry, which he said is “antioxidant rich.”
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The renovation preserved only an old chimney and the beams of ceilings, which he left exposed (right). From left: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
The renovation preserved only an old chimney and the beams of ceilings, which he left exposed (right). From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors…
The renovation preserved only an old chimney and the beams of ceilings, which he left exposed (right). From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
The second floor centers on an entertainment area. A curved space in the rear left has a bathtub.
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The couch faces a pull-down projector screen.
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The tub has a perfect view of the screen by design. “My days sometimes mean 12-to-13 hours on my feet, and I would come back and soak in the tub and watch a movie and let all the tension flow out of the body,” Giacona said.
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The custom shutters above a Japanese soaking tub are Ionescu’s favorite detail in the house. “They’re super-unique and really beautiful,” she said. And they fit a renovation that she called “a story of love for this home.”
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Old windows come from Zaborski Emporium in Kingston, where Giacona laid them out “in a puzzle” that he put together “little by little” with contractors.
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Behind the glass wall is a large bedroom. There’s a terrace off this bedroom and another off the rear of this floor.
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On the third floor, Giacona took the walls down to the studs. From left: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
On the third floor, Giacona took the walls down to the studs. From top: Photo: Joseph GiaconaPhoto: Interiors by Kat
A bedroom on the top floor was where Giacona stayed while gutting the rest of the house. “You could hear the ocean when you put your head down.”
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He centered the bathroom on the top floor around an open rain shower.
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A living area with a ladder up to the roof.
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Stairs down to a basement. Giacona raised the windows to keep out potential floodwater.
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A cedar sauna from Finland was his first purchase. He later arranged extra cedar to form the shape of a wave.
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A soundproof music room in the basement. “I can play drums all night and the neighbors can’t hear it,” he said.
Photo: Interiors by Kat
Photo: Interiors by Kat