Whenever people congregate at this Amagansett house they’re warmly greeted by the charismatic husband-and-wife homeowners, their two engaging children, their French bulldog, Charlie Watts (fully named for the Rolling Stones drummer), and also another resident, Ribo, who always remains silent, yet charismatic. In an inviting seating area off the kitchen, sits Ribo, a nickname for Riboflavin—as in the vitamin. As the wife explains, “My husband has had the plant [a Philodendron Bipinnatifidum] since college, in 1992. He bought it the first week of orientation at Brown, which is where we met. He named it for the connection between vitamin B and plant growth.”
The potted plant is emblematic of how this family uses this secondary home and how they have fun while in residence there. When they first toured this house with a real estate agent, the couple was so smitten with its nearly hundred-year-old profile, as well as the clean interior design scheme, that they said they would buy it if they could use the same interior designer and architect who had done a previous remodel of the existing house.
“When I heard they wanted to expand the footprint considerably, I said to the real estate agent, ‘I want to only work with people who are nice,’” says Jack Wettling, a New York City–based architect. “So, we interviewed each other,” he recounts, “and I could tell immediately that they would be ‘super’ clients, engaging, fun. They said they wanted to hire someone able to do something they couldn’t conceive of doing. I knew then that they weren’t going to be co-architecting. So, they let me go free on the design.”
A floor lamp from Foscarini hovers above a sectional from RH in the living room.
A ceiling fixture from AlexAllen Studio hangs above a custom island. The range is from Wolf, and the cabinetry is custom.
The wallcovering is a custom pickled wood finish, and the ceiling fixture is from Ochre.
In the dining from, vases from Lobmeyr and a bowl from Pottery Barn sit on a table from RH.
Armchairs from ABC Carpet & Home complement a sofa from Montauk Sofa. The sofa fabric is from Perennials, and the coffee table and rug are from RH.
In the primary bedroom, a bed with a covering from Jenni Kayne is covered in linens from The White Company.
The coffee table is from Pottery Barn, and the armchairs and sofa are from RH. The curtain fabric is from Rogers & Goffigon.
The vanity in the primary bath is custom, and the shower hardware is from Samuel Heath.
Outdoor furnishings from RH surround a custom firepit; Alex Bluedorn of LaGuardia Design Group served as the landscape architect.
Chaise longues surround the pool area.
The outdoor kitchen features an island, bar stools, and cabinetry by Roshults.
A custom banquette surrounds the waterfall hot tub.
Wettling echoed the existing house in a new three-bedroom section he added to a side of the house, essentially stretching out the residence. He also reoriented the swimming pool, relocating it farther from the house. “I like waking up early and looking out onto the property, but not right at a swimming pool,” says the wife. “I wanted to maintain a parky feel to the land, so it made sense to put the new pool a distance away.” Sightlines, inside the house and outside became goals for Wettling. By adding the wing, changing the pool locale, creating an expansive downstairs living/entertaining area, and building a pool house and separate hot tub area, he created a wholly new home, of sorts. “From the primary bedroom, situated at one far side of the house, you can see now all the way through the house, through the wing of new bedrooms,” he says. “And when entering the front door, you see right through the house to the pool and beyond.”
The husband and wife work hard at their jobs (as do their children at being students in college and high school), so they wanted their house to be both a refuge from work and a place where they could do work, when necessary. “I wanted to design the house so that it could feel intimate with just two people in it or equally intimate if every bedroom was filled,” says Wettling. He designed an outdoor deck off the primary bedroom with a custom mahogany desk where the wife can work, while still remaining connected to her family and the life of the house.
With the clients’ directive for rooms that are calm and serene, they commissioned Tricia Foley, the Brookhaven-based designer whose work they had witnessed in the house when it was on the market. Using a decidedly neutral backdrop of multiple whites and grays, Foley furnished rooms with equally neutral items. She, like Wettling, was given free rein in her designs. “They’re both busy, highly successful people,” she says, “they work long hours and have little time for figuring out chairs and sofas and accessories.” Foley’s resulting rooms are spare yet warm, accessible yet chic, practical yet novel.
“I wake up early and every time I walk into the kitchen, with its double-height ceiling, it takes my breath away it’s so bright and cheerful,” says the wife. “There’s light overheard, and everywhere, in the house and it makes me happy every time we’re here as a family.” When in residence, she and her husband regularly greet Ribo with a watering.