Sparking Joy

Now infused with pattern and color, a once nondescript beach retreat in North Carolina is playfully transformed by Muriel Brandolini

- SARAH MEDFORD

ON SUMMER WEEKENDS, the barrier beaches of North Carolina's Figure Eight Island swell with shorebirds and families picnicking under sunshades. But in the offseason, when Amanda Ross Bacon and her husband, Zack Bacon, enjoy it most, the island is sculpted by marsh grasses and the low sun, revealing a lucid beauty. Zack spent childhood summers in the area, as did his four kids, the youngest of whom, a set of twins, are now 22. For Ross Bacon, who met her husband 12 years ago, Figure Eight Island and the four-bedroom house he inherited recently have become not just a year-round home, she says, but "a place to connect with Zack's family narrative." A philanthropist with a fashion background, Ross Bacon considers herself "a city girl and a mountain girl," she says, "but life is full of surprises." As a magazine stylist, she traveled in the same Manhattan circles as AD100 interior designer Muriel Brandolini.

But it wasn't until six years ago, when so much in the world changed, that the two began building an adoring, transformative friendship. Count among them Brandolini's transformed wardrobe and Ross Bacon's three homes, in New York City, the Hamptons (AD, January 2024), and now North Carolina.