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Go to a designer showhouse and you are sure to encounter some top real estate. It is inherent in the concept. If the organizers are going to attract top designers and draw in spectators, they’ve got to start with a head-rush kind of house in a drop dead location, and then soup it up even further.
Tasteful excess is the name of the game. We don’t go to showhouses to observe restrained good taste or to get practical tips on decorating. We go to see a bit of fantasy, something magnetizing and seductive, exorbitant in its budget and extravagant in its results.
Put this theory into play in the Hamptons, where indulgence is as much a part of life as westbound traffic on Sunday nights, and you’ve got a perfect storm of decorative profligacy. That’s why we can’t wait each year for the opening of the Hampton Designer Showhouse, a benefit for Southampton Hospital, presented by House & Garden Magazine.
Anticipating the gala opening in July, we recently attended a cocktail party at antique dealer Florian Papp, on Madison Avenue, where the names of the participating designers were announced. Everyone was exceedingly well behaved. We did not notice a single glass deposited on the rare and precious tabletops, but then again most of the people holding those glasses were in the decorating world and should know how to treat a big ticket antique.
We saw a number of old friends among the heirlooms and collectables, and also met some new ones. Charlotte Moss is this year’s Showhouse Chair. She is well known in the Hamptons and New York, and is a smart choice to organize it all. But, being in the executive suite this year, she won’t be designing a room, and we’ll miss that. Showhouse veterans Gary Crain and James Alan Smith are back as Design Chair and Decorative Arts Chair. As usual, marketing is handled by Tony Manning.
Since all the designers will be working hard to gain recognition (and business), to make us aware of who they are and to entertain us, and most importantly to raise money for Southampton Hospital, we’ll give them a little applause right now.
Returning to the showhouse, presumably to top their previous work:
Christopher Peacock
Eric Cohler
Ernest de la Torre
Falk & Gordon
Healing Barsanti
Kenneth Alpert and Andrew Petronio for KA Design Group
Noel Jeffrey
Philip Gorrivan Design
Robert Stilin
Salisbury & Manus
Scott-Ulmann, Inc
New to the showhouse, and out to win our approval:
Alex Papachristidis Interiors
Amanda Nisbet Design
Barclay Butera
Buzz Kelly Interiors
Dennis Rolland, Inc
Emma Jane Pilkington Fine Interiors
Jay Jeffers, Jeffers Design Group
Martha Angus and Paula Caravelli
Michael Rosenberg and Leonard Kowalski
Nathan Egan Interiors
Philip La Bossiere
This is the sixth annual showhouse, and the venue is a new, arts and craft style spec house by Burns Development Corp. on Highland Terrace in Bridgehampton. We remember when Highland Terrace was almost rural, virtually surrounded by farmland, but it is still fairly open and typical of south of the highway Hamptons with lots of sky and ocean breezes.
The house is enormous, but in a real estate market where average sizes range from stupendous to colossal, that’s to be expected, and for the showcase purposes it’s just right. And you can count on every inch of the place decked out to dazzle.
The showhouse opens with a gala preview party on July 15th, and runs until August 27th, which is opening day for the Hampton Classic. You can get some rest after Labor Day.