Curves Ahead

FROM A SPIRAL STAIR WITH A COORDINATING GEORGIA O’KEEFFE SCULPTURE TO ROOMS FILLED WITH VIBRANT SKY BLUES, THIS BRIAN J. McCARTHY–DESIGNED HAMPTONS HOME IS FILLED WITH THE UNEXPECTED.

- Nancy Hass

LIKE LUXURY, INFORMALITY IS RELATIVE. FOR THIS couple, who asked New York–based ED A-List designer Brian J. McCarthy to create a casual, beachy home for summer weekends in Southampton, New York, informality meant a grand East End–style shingled mansion loosened up with airy surfaces, sophisticated geometrics, and a sunny soupçon of color. “They wanted it to be fun,” says McCarthy, who collaborated with Randy M. Correll of Robert A.M. Stern Architects.

McCarthy knew well the couple’s tastes, as he has done two other homes for them: a vast, Art Deco–inflected apartment in a refined 1920s building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (which was featured in ELLE DECOR in December 2007), and the country home they escape to most spring and fall weekends, in Locust Valley on Long Island’s tony North Shore—the heart of Great Gatsby country—about an hour from Manhattan. “I knew they liked things to be strong and unfussy,” says McCarthy, who is known for his modern twists on traditional idioms and was a partner in the legendary firm of Parish-Hadley before going out on his own in 1992. “Working with them is always a spirited dialogue.”