The Hamptons is an interesting hybrid of communities that mixes luxury homes for the rich and famous with bucolic farmlands. It’s a delicate balance to achieve for anyone building a getaway here that feels both architecturally appropriate and has all the modern comforts expected in such a place. So it was with this 10-bedroom second sanctuary bordering a Sagaponack potato field for a fortysomething real estate developer, his wife and two young children.
To achieve this equilibrium, Aman & Meeks Interior Design worked with a local architect to create a residence that telegraphs a Dutch Colonial shingle aesthetic to the world, while providing contemporary style inside. “We believed it should have a sense of history, that it should feel authentic,” explains Jim Aman. John Meeks adds, “We love Grey Gardens, so we wanted harlequin windows, which are quintessential 1920s details.”
Additionally, says managing partner Meredith Aman, “It had to be conducive to indoor-outdoor entertaining. And they wanted the kids to have something to do in all seasons.” So despite the conservative exterior whose narrowest dimensions are oriented toward the street to dissimulate its 11,000 square footage, the back is all steel windows and doors to facilitate interior-exterior flow. For summer there is a pool out back, while inside, she notes, “There’s an interior pool, gym, spa, media room that seats 20 and a wine room.”
The entry hall introduces aesthetic and programmatic themes. For starters, it’s primarily white. “Most of our clients are major art collectors,” says Aman, “and there’s a reason gallery walls are white.” However, adds John Meeks, “One thing we hate is a boring white house. It’s why we use Venetian plaster. It reflects light interestingly and has a lot of texture.”
“Art” and “texture” are operative words here. A Ryan McGinness work brings color and vibratory rhythms to an otherwise calming, creamy-white space accented by textures of a live-edge wood end table, a silver- and gold-leaf Willy Daro coffee table and a fuzzy shearling rug. Programmatically, explains Meeks, “The clients felt that because they do so much entertaining, they didn’t want to waste another possible seating space.”
This same sort of textural salmagundi proceeds into the living room. “Even though there’s a formality to it, there’s still a young vibe,” he observes. This they achieved through the fluid interplay of classical and contemporary styles (another Daro cocktail table fitted with a Meeks-designed lacquer nesting table, 1970s Grecian chairs by John Hutton and French-style chairs flanking a midcentury cabinet) and textures (bronze, shearling, wood, rock crystal).
The one room that diverges from this unifying aesthetic is the library. “We always break from the mostly white walls with a colorful or paneled room,” explains Meeks. Cerused oak is the primary departure here, though the furnishings echo the same genre-blending evident elsewhere. The home, in other words, makes a convincing argument for continuity, which for many is synonymous with a sense of peaceful serenity. Yet the eclecticism as well as the art – by Donald Baechler, Will Cotton, Beverly Fishman, Robert Mangold, Kiki Smith, Pat Steir and others – keeps things lively too.
Photography by Karen Fuchs.
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