Hamptons Classic Style

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.

Mixing, Not Matching
In a Sag Harbor sunroom, Azan-Baker finessed a mix of whitish tonal variations from brilliant white to creams and beiges. She also took advantage of its generous number of windows to connect the interior to the colors of nature outside. The Sag Harbor designer works to create a space that reflects the personalities of her clients, and looks askance at some local designers she feels are all about a “matchy matchy sameness.”

Old is New
Of course modern elements are still the rage, but to soften contemporary edginess designers are going back in time to resurrect antiques and quirky vintage finds. Sag Harbor designer Farrin Cary says that Hamptonites “crave a sense of history” as if they’ve inhabited their dwelling “for hundreds of years.” Her clients are “veering away from new” and are willing to wait for the right antique piece or found object. “It’s nice to see a trend of people trying to cultivate homes to keep for generations rather than renting for a summer.”

Midas Touches
Considering the area’s love affair with new builders’ homes and her clients’ desire for a sense of history, Cary often strips existing fittings and finishes such as light fixtures and hardware and replaces them with versions that contain “more patina, character and depth.” Hamptons designers, including Amy Hill, principal of an eponymous design firm in East Quogue, are creating a warmer feel by mixing gold-tone finishes, especially in kitchen and bathroom hardware and lighting. She favors rose gold, copper and brass. “We’re all so tired of stark, stale, polished nickel.” She also likes mixing metals such as “black metal with copper or one warm metal with another.”

Unique Motifs
To get away from what she finds as the homogeneity of many local spaces, which she says “feel like you’re walking into a hotel,” Azan-Baker combines special pieces that the client might already own and haunts antique stores and estate sales in search of unusual items to imprint the individuality of her client’s personality upon a space. For a Sag Harbor house she found a table with “an amazing deer antler base and horrid glass top.” She replaced the glass with a distressed wood top.

Texture
Since many Hamptonites like their furniture white, designers are layering in textural elements such as woods, metals, leathers, wools and silks. For the model houses of a new waterfront townhouse development, Ponquogue Point in East Quogue, Bridgehampton designers Mabley Handler “have raised the sophistication level” from clichéd nautical references (think anchors and sailor hats) to installing teak and holly wood paneling “synonymous with [the] nautical luxury” found in antique Chris-Craft and Riva yachts, according to firm partner Austin Handler.

Rustic Elegance
In a manse in Water Mill constructed by high-end builder Jeffrey Colle, Hill laid a base of chic furnishings to which she added a highly textured burnt teak table from Bali and a sisal run to achieve what she calls “rustic elegance” and “to create a space with a real personality.”

Vibrant Colors
As many summer visitors are now extending their calendars to spend time in their Hamptons homes year round, they require “pops of color, particularly blue” to stand out from the usual white/cream background, says Hill, who claims that “electric and navy blue and even purple have been very popular.” These blues are showing up on fabrics, wallpaper and even furniture. Hill painted a pool table electric blue. Mabley Handler continues to use their “signature cool tone purple-gray-blue,” a color that refers to sky and water.

Statement Lighting
“Clients are now looking for their lighting to not only serve as a source of illumination but also as a talking point that has more of an architectural design,” says Hill. At a designers show house in Cutchogue last summer, she placed a pair of resin horn lamps on modern white lacquer night stands from Serena and Lily as a way of contrasting an old-time element with the new.

Though Hamptons designers pay attention to what’s trending outside our borders, local design stays pretty consistent. As Handler says, “We do what we like and it continues to resonate with our clients.” The main thing that Hamptonites require, he believes, is quality. “As much as people want to relax out here, they still want touches of luxury to help enhance their surroundings.”