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Large, traditional, shingle style houses with airy interiors and an assortment of bleached woods and pale fabrics have long been typical the so called “Hamptons look.” It’s an inexact but workable description that is used more often now by real estate agents than designers and decorators. Other approaches, notably the modernist architecture and innovative interiors so emblematic of younger, progressive tastes in Manhattan, used to make only occasional, exploratory trips across the Shinnecock Canal, but in the last few years an eclectic sort of modernism seems to have gotten underway. Adherents of these pared down styles are literally gaining ground as they move east.
The Hamptons Designer Showhouse (opening this year with a gala on July 23rd) has stood someplace in the middle, its rotating venue a conventional and characteristically sumptuous spec house (shingle style seems the only kind of spec house) balanced with adventurous and of course luxurious interiors. After all, showhouses are supposed to be a bit over the top, serve as incubators for thought-provoking ideas and to be settings for designers to display their fine feathers in a mating dance that attracts potential clients. Practicality and price are of little consequence. The tried and true and predictable—that so called Hamptons look—is not what paying visitors come to see. Indeed, for many it is considered old hat.
So has that familiar, recognizable style run out of steam? Are other defining looks replacing it? Is modernism a contender? Nick Martin, whose Sagaponack firm, Martin Architects, does both architectural and furniture design, put it this way: “We have a generation that has as much money as its predecessors but with progressive thinking—original and sophisticated when it comes to design. Their aesthetic outlook tends toward modern, but they don’t have rigid attitudes. For them, it’s not about following any one fashion or person, it’s about living in stoic comfort, in appealing and distinguished surroundings.”
Freedom, or at least freedom from prescribed looks and trends, is in the air. It will be enlightening to see what participating designers do with their rooms in the showhouse this summer—and also how the latest cohort of buyers in the Hamptons fulfill their dreams and furnish their houses.