The color of summer, white is the perennial go-to color in Hamptons interior design. “It's cooling and relaxing to the eye,” says Sag Harbor interior designer, Annette Azan-Baker. But it can also be stark, which is why Hamptons designers always face the challenge of downplaying the famous “non-color” in various creative ways. Here are some of the latest tricks of the trade in keeping interiors bright yet also imbuing them with warmth and diversity.

The living room is the heart of the home. “Especially when you’re at the beach,” says Manhattan interior designer James Huniford. Because of the particular joys of entertaining in the Hamptons—a mood set by the sun, the sea, the thrill of the getaway—Huniford’s approach to a Hamptons living room creates a relaxed environment geared towards social gatherings, from intimate moments with one or two friends, to large parties where a never ending parade of guests may be marching through the front door.

Though national home furnishings chains are seeping onto the South Fork more and more—think Ethan Allen, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and the upcoming Home Goods—there is a generous assortment of local emporiums, each with its own distinct personality.

In 1979 Michelle Murphy and Robert Strada, a young couple who’d known each other only eight months, began to look for their perfect Hamptons house. Real estate agent Ceil Ackley took them to a shingle-style Amagansett house built in 1894 to give them an idea of the sort of old-world house they sought. Alas, it wasn’t for sale. Yet the pair fell so in love with the authentic relic of times past that a deal was soon struck.