Hamptons Design and Décor (June 27, 1997) 

“Bridgehampton Bali Ha’i”

Peter Cook Designs With Oriental Flavor

            Who says that a Hamptons house has to be all wicker and chintz? While this sprawling structure by Peter Cook is decidedly a country house, which country is anybody’s guess. With references from the South Pacific, the West Indies, the plantations of the American Deep South and a dash of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style, the end result is a residence as worldly as its owner, a stylish bachelor with a yen for contemporary art. The house is actually built on the site of his parents’ original weekend retreat, a 50’s “catalog house” of no particular architectural distinction. Following a quick bulldoze, the new house took its site orientation and room arrangement from its predecessor. Indeed, visiting family members frequently remark about an uncanny familiarity, as if they had been there before.

            The owner’s wish list included an open plan for the public spaces. He wanted to be able to putter in the kitchen and still interact with guests in the living room. He also requested that everything be on one floor… a second story seemed gratuitous given the three acre site… and that interiors would be shaded by generous overhangs. Beneath them, sidewalls gently curve outward, further emphasizing the house’s lyrical, organic appeal.

            “To avoid the look of a typical ranch house, we needed to employ a dominant roof line,” explains Peter Cook. “The client’s world travels made the pagoda shape a familiar, comfortable form.” Kolbe & Kolbe windows and glazed French terracotta floors throughout complete the serenely unified turnout. Topping it off, soaring ceilings that follow the roof line are stained in a lush dark mahogany. One uniquely clever detail that harkens to the plantation style: double doors on the bedrooms… one swinging solid, one pocket louvered.

            Interior designer Mimi MacDougall also took her cues from the globetrotting life. “We wanted it to be very simple,” she says, but with a sense of the colonial Far East.” With high style, she mixed batiks with striped silks and English tapestry prints with bamboo. One over-the-top guest room is fit for a pasha, with faux-tortoised window and door frames, madras bedcovers and billowing organza draperies. The master suite is the polar opposite of the rest of the house… bright, white and cleanly finished with a sort of luxuriously upholstered California feel. “My Beverly Hills bedroom,” reveals the owner. “I’m only doing one house in my life, so let’s do it right!” 

By Trey Wegman.