Renovating a 10,000-square-foot house at the height of a global pandemic would have been risky even if the schedule had not been, well, ambitious. New owners bought this 10-bedroom home in Bridgehampton in the late summer of 2020, when most of the world was in various degrees of panicked isolation. The parents of three small children, the New York City residents wanted their summer home to be turnkey by July 4, 2021. They chose Water Mill–based Mabley Handler Interior Design to get the job done.
Founded in 2002, when Jennifer Mabley and her husband, Austin Handler, moved to the East End to raise a family, the company has become a leader in defining easy, breezy Hamptons style, a credit to Mabley’s already long career as a decorator in Manhattan, Long Island, and Palm Beach and Handler’s earlier experience and finely honed eye as a graphic designer and photographer. Pooling their talents 20-plus years ago was a gamble that paid off. Lately, the pair has expanded their sophisticated, yet beachy world view to satellite offices in Manhattan and Palm Beach, and now their grown sons are in college and high school.
When Mabley Handler took on the project, it was not meant to be a large-scale renovation, although it became one as they started to make alterations and adjustments. Taking its design cues from the classic shingle-style “cottages” of the Arts and Crafts era, the house “was beautiful, with gracefully sweeping rooflines,” Mabley comments. “But there were dated finishes, the windows needed attention, and our clients’ tastes are more modern.”
An aluminum bistro table from Kathy Kuo Home stands at attention in the foyer.
In the airy living room, a tight color palette is enriched by subtly patterned textiles and horizontal striations in the fireplace surround and Phillip Jeffries wallpaper. Furnishings include a custom Mabley Handler sofa, a cocktail table from Palecek, and a wool rug from F. J. Kashanian.
A watery blue palette in the dining room comes courtesy of dining chairs from Mabley Handler’s line for Kravet, an F. J. Kashanian rug, and artwork by Paton Miller.
The kitchen includes white quartz countertops, a Blue de Savoie marble backsplash, a Wolf range, and barstools from Palecek.
In the breakfast area, leather chairs from Nuevo Living surround a pedestal table by Belle Meade Signature. The Deskins chandelier is from Arteriors.
The downstairs junior primary bedroom is dominated by a Mabley Handler canopy bed from Kravet. The chairs and ottomans are from Rumrunner Home.
Furnishings in the outdoor sitting area and the chaises around the pool are all from Dedon. The umbrellas are from RH.
The main room in the new pool house includes a custom bar with white leather stools from Rumrunner Home. The ceiling fixture is from Serena & Lily.
The screened sunroom includes a suite of teak and abaca furniture from Palecek and a weather-resistant rug from the Rug Company.
A ceiling fixture from Visual Comfort & Co. amplifies cerused-oak millwork in the library. The lamp and chair are from Rumrunner Home.
In the primary bedroom, a fine-grained Palecek headboard marries well with Phillip Jeffries’ Modern Threads silk wall covering in Silver Bells.
A daughter’s room features a Brewster Home Fashions wallpaper studded with capiz-shell flowers from Anthropologie, a headboard from Serena & Lily, and a pouf from Surya.
A daughter’s room features a Brewster Home Fashions wallpaper studded with capiz-shell flowers from Anthropologie and a pouf from Surya.
The son’s bathroom pairs a graphic whale-motif wallpaper from Serena & Lily with a streamlined Lacava tub from Ferguson.
So work began, indoors and out. The design team reconfigured the interiors and installed new, sometimes larger windows throughout. All the fireplace surrounds were resurfaced, and coffered ceilings in some rooms were covered to create simpler lines. The exterior living room wall was replaced to accommodate a motorized sliding door system. And eventually a new pool was installed, along with an ample pool house and tennis court. In other words, as each task was completed, new tasks arose.
“The step from agreeing on new flooring to deciding the bathroom needs gutting can be a very small one,” Mabley says. New clients, Handler adds, “are often very certain about what they want, but sometimes the target evolves as you work. It became clear to Jennifer and me that these clients weren’t looking for a quick renovation, but a total reimagining of the property so that it would fit the needs of their growing family.” In the end, Mabley says “We touched just about everything, even the garden, hardscaping included.”
The interior decor merges diverse worlds, from the modern aluminum table in the foyer to the earthy teak and abaca furniture in the screened sunroom. “We wanted to include contemporary pieces, but they needed to have an organic feel to them,” Mabley says. “Even though the foyer table is metal, for example, it still has a hand-hewn look to it.” The notorious supply-chain shortages spawned by the pandemic made their goals that much more challenging to achieve. “At one point,” Mabley recounts, “we had to cancel all our outstanding upholstery orders” because vendors kept adding weeks to the delivery dates. “Every time we ran into an issue, we’d go to the clients to ask if they wanted to wait or to find available alternatives, and because of the pandemic, we couldn’t stay married to any of our design choices. We had to be flexible and ready to improvise, which was exciting to me. Ultimately, we decided to customize a lot of pieces, and everyone worked well into the night for a week in time for the scheduled completion date. But we made it, down to the last flower in the garden.”
