The East End of Long Island changed color when Frederico Azevedo moved there more than 30 years ago. As the prolific Brazilian-born landscape designer says, with humor but also some accuracy, “When I came out here in 1990, everything was white! Every house’s floor, the walls, furnishings, the outsides of houses, and everything in everyone’s garden was nothing but white. I said to myself, ‘No, I don’t agree with that. I love color, and I’m going to bring color here’.” It’s fair to claim that many colorful gardens abloom throughout the Hamptons can trace their lineage to what Azevedo introduced.
He cites his former color-filled country of Brazil and his love of all things mid-century Modern, particularly the distinctive Brazilian version of the movement that he grew up with, as guiding forces for how he designs people’s gardens, as well as the interiors of his North Haven home. “Color unifies everything,” he insists. “The more flowers, plants, shapes you put in a garden, the more you attract birds and insects, which helps the sustainability of your landscape. That translates, too, 100 percent, to what goes into the rooms of your home. Shapes, colors, forms create a sense of movement when you look at them. They’re never static.”
When Azevedo, owner of Unlimited Earth Care, commissioned this five-bedroom house in 1996, he was married at the time, with two children, and he wanted the residence to embody something fundamental for him. “Because I was coming from Brazil, I always had a dream of living in an American house. That meant having a black lab, a pickup truck, and a Cape-style house.” He fulfilled his wish list (though he now owns a French bulldog named Louis) with this house that he built on a two-acre site that had previously been a chicken farm.
Over the years, he has furnished the rooms as if, in a sense, they are indoor gardens—spaces filled with multiple shapes and hues, notably greens, “the most prevalent color in nature.” There is not a moment in his home that isn’t colorful, but the key to its success is that “multiple shapes have to balance, and multiple colors have to harmonize.” Surprisingly, he cites venerable animated movies, such as Chicken Run and Pinocchio, as influences for his color palette. “Animation is very much the inspirations for my work because the colors in those movies indicate the mood of scenes.”
Surrounding the pool area is a garden in full bloom. The landscape design is by homeowner Frederico Azevedo, owner of Unlimited Earth Care.
Artwork by Paul Robinson hangs above a round sofa also by Poltrona Frau.
In the living room, artwork by Ugo Rondinone hangs above a sofa by Poltrona Frau.
A sculpture by Curtis Jeré hangs in another seating area of the living room, where the sofa and coffee table are by Florence Knoll.
Bar stools from B&B Italia surround the island in the kitchen. The range and hood are Viking.
In the kitchen dining area, the table and chairs are Saarinen by Knoll, and the artwork on the wall is titled Red Dancer by Alex Katz.
The dining chairs are designed by Naoto Fukasawa, and the table is designed by Antonio Citterio, both from B&B Italia.
Frederico Azevedo is pictured with his French bulldog.
In a guest bedroom, the armchair and stool are by Jeffrey Bernett from B&B Italia.
In a daughter’s bedroom, artwork on the left wall is by Sam Lao; the bed is by Molteni.
Mid-century chairs from Brazil are at the end of the bed in a son’s bedroom.
In the powder room, sconces from Ralph Lauren Home flank the vanity mirror.
Antique lamps from Paris complement a bed frame by Lazzoni in the primary bedroom.
A vase from Hong Kong is placed on a table from Harbour in an outdoor dining area.
Steel spheres are placed in a garden area, surrounded by Japanese forest grass, a Japanese maple tree, and tree-form hydrangeas.
A sculpture by Charlotte Champion is surrounded by florals in the yard.
His living room, for instance, has multiple moods, depending on where you are in it. One end focuses on a runway-long, black Poltrana Frau sofa, over which appears a Ugo Rondinone Sun series work on paper, while the other side is defined by a gray sofa in dialogue with semi-circular green chairs and pieces designed by Florence Knoll. The dining room is equally animated and ablaze with color, largely from Azevedo’s art collection, a wall of which features an Eric Fischl beach scene and a Maria Lídia Magliani portrait of a blue man.
In an eating area off the kitchen, Alex Katz’s face of a dancer gazes into the room. “I like to sit there and look at her and feel she’s looking at me,” says Azevedo. “Art, for me, is about spiritual reflection and thinking.” He explains that he is attracted to paintings, drawings, and photographs that often include figures, but that are rendered in abstracted ways so that a viewer continues to question what’s being depicted.
Perhaps the most arresting room in the home, ironically, is one people simply pass through—the two-story-high entry. A planet-sized custom fiberglass fixture from DDC glows within. “The idea is I wanted people to feel, when entering, as if they’re entering the outdoors,” he explains. “That’s why I have the siding typical of the outside of a house inside and a light that glows like a moon.”
Azevedo’s signature landscape design comes into full bloom outside, with a border/bunker bed filled with colorful flowers—tulips, Shasta daisies, peonies, fox gloves, Russian sage, iceberg roses, and many more. Meanwhile, his pool surface is adorned with stainless steel balls he designed, orbs floating on the water that capture and reflect sunlight and nature’s colors.
Despite his success as one of the most coveted landscape designers of our era, Azevedo has never lost sight of his own origins. “I never thought I could achieve what I have achieved. The one word that could define my whole life is discipline—knowing what I needed to do to get things done right.”
