This year’s Sustainability House Tour offered a chance to see just how much history, creativity, and care live inside Park Slope’s brownstones and row houses. Few people know that tradition better than Tim Gilles, former president of the Park Slope Civic Council, who helped bring the House Tour back after the pandemic and reshape it with a focus on sustainability. We spoke with Tim about the history of the tour, what stood out this year, and why it continues to matter.
Q: The House Tour has been part of Park Slope for decades. What do you think still makes it such a meaningful tradition?
A: I think, at its core, it is still about what it was about when it first began in 1959. It gives people a chance to appreciate the extraordinary homes we have in this neighborhood and how fortunate Park Slope is to have so much of it still intact. These are remarkable buildings, and the tour lets people experience them from the inside, which is very different from simply walking past them on the street.
The tour also continues to be a meaningful source of funds for our community grants programs and therefore is a great opportunity to reinvest in the vitality of our neighborhood.
Q: You helped bring the House Tour back after the pandemic and introduced a sustainability focus. Why did that feel like the right next step?
A: When I became president, the Civic Council was just beginning to come back from the pandemic, and we were trying to restart a number of things carefully. The House Tour had always been an important tradition, but it is also a major undertaking, so I did not want to rush into it. When we did bring it back, I thought it would be interesting to try something a little different. The sustainability focus felt like a natural way to show not only how beautiful these homes are, but also how flexible and forward-looking they can be.
Q: What did you hope people would take away from this year’s tour?
A: Mostly appreciation and inspiration. Appreciation for how special these houses are and for the neighborhood more broadly, and inspiration because these buildings can be adapted in so many ways. Some of the homes on the tour were carefully restored, others were more fully modernized, and in both cases people could see how sustainable technologies can fit into buildings that were constructed well over a century ago. I think that is part of what makes the tour interesting.
Q: This year’s tour included a wide mix of homes and features. What stood out to you most?
A: One thing we always try to do is offer variety. This year that meant a former rectory with a great deal of original detail, a house that had been almost entirely rebuilt, a construction site that will eventually become a fully passive house, and a property with significant flood mitigation work because it sits over what was once a historic pond. We also had that unusual run of interconnected back gardens, which I think people really enjoyed. It gave a nice sense of just how many different kinds of spaces and stories exist within the neighborhood.