The Season of Giving: Our Favorite Home Goods for 2025

On the East End, there is no shortage of good options when it comes to shopping for design-forward gifts for friends and family.

For 2025, we’ve scoured the stores and picked out a few of our favorite things. Whether your loved one loves to entertain, muse over architecture, or simply look at something pretty, local stores have something ready to be wrapped up with a perfect little bow. 

Maybe the ideal home gift is a gift about home. In 2023, noted architecture critic Paul Goldberger penned the 280-page book Blue Dream and the Legacy of Modernism in the Hamptons: A House by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The book tells the story of a house on East Hampton’s Atlantic Double Dunes, a modernist collaboration between collectors Julie Reyes Taubman and Robert Taubman, architects Diller Scofido + Renfro, builder Ed Bulgin, designer Michael Lewis, and landscape architect Michael Boucher. Illustrated with images of other modernist homes, as well as documents from the design project, this book, the ideal pick from East Hampton’s independent bookseller BookHampton, can live prominently on the coffee table of any design lover who is passionate about modernism and its long legacy. 

At Bridgehampton’s Comerford Collection, shoppers can keep their eyes out for prizes that are truly extraordinary. Decorative ceramic and glass pieces are de rigueur at Comeford, like the ceramic series “Critters,” handcrafted objets d’arte in terra cotta with blue glaze. Equally arresting: matte-glazed Blue Moki Marbles, a sculptural piece that can live on any beloved home surface, and that draws the eye in, thanks to its pop of color. Comerford also offers beautiful textiles, like the medium-weight Klimt throw, made from linen, wool, and acrylic, and woven in alternating bands of white and green. 

Home gifts should touch all the senses—and that includes the sense of smell. For a home fragrance that both looks and smells impressive, head directly to Sag Harbor’s MONC XIII, where you can purchase a bespoke bottle of Cire Trudon’s Madurai Room Spray Les Belles Matieres. Made by the world’s oldest candle-maker, the French-based Cire Trudon, this onyx-colored bottle comes with its own atomizer, just like the classic bottles of perfume. When the Madurai is gone, the bottle will live on. (But those on the hunt for a refillable scent can shop Cire Trudon’s La Promeneuse Diffuser Set, also available at MONC XIII; with adjustable settings, it can set the scent for any room.) 

Relative Southampton newcomer Aloof Icon has plenty of design-forward gifts for the pop art person in your life. A lighter designed to mimic a tube of lipstick? The ideal stocking stuffer for the friend in your life who always has a candle burning. A resin-coated tray decorated with actual over-the-counter medications and hand-filled glitter capsules? It’s practically Warhol, without the price tag attached. The store sells more risqué pieces, too, like Jonathan Adler-designed canisters that hold certain, ahem, comestible and consumable items, as well as candles, plates, and cutting boards with words perhaps too salacious for print—but perhaps not too salacious for gifting. 

Those chasing a more bohemian vibe (or shopping for a more bohemian friend or family member) should decamp to Amagansett’s Sunshine. A large ceramic serving bowl from Portugal—the Antigua—makes a great gift for the consummate entertainer, and hand-blown water carafes made from recycled glass (and available in aqua, rose, and green) add a bit of wit and whimsy to any modern tablescape. 

For an equally unique Amagansett-based shopping experience, head to Love Adorned. Primarily a jewelry shop, this store also offers vintage wares for the home, from doorknockers to planters to sculptures. Founder Lori Leven curates the vintage pieces and folk art herself, adding to the homegrown feel of this classic and beloved Amagansett institution. Inventory is regularly changing, but a recent favorite of ours includes a stunning mid-century ceramic owl bank. That quirky friend who loves home goods and is equally impossible to shop for? This just might be the destination that cures all gifting ailments.