fbpx

“We use every corner of the house every time we’re here,” says designer Dan Mazzarini, who shares a 1,500-square-foot weekend house on the North Fork of Long Island with his partner Andy Grover—and a constant flow of guests. The front Dutch door opens directly onto the great room, where the couple set the mood for casual entertaining with a high-low mix that includes a dining table from Noir surrounded by canvas chairs from Wayfair.

Reid Rolls

Less Is So Much More in This Tiny North Fork House

Designer Dan Mazzarini decided not to gut renovate this small 1960s ranch—and found the beauty in living simply.

August 1, 2024

On the North Fork of Long Island, the light is special and there’s an uncomplicated beauty in the views over Long Island Sound. It’s the kind of place where unfussy and casual are prized above all else. It’s also the kind of place where waterfront property still comes in the form of modest 1960s ranch houses that top out at 1,500 square feet.

“It feels very generous to call it a ranch,” says designer Dan Mazzarini, who bought just such a house—the interiors still clad in the glory of 1970s wood paneling—in 2019 with his partner, Andy Grover. “It’s really just two tiny Monopoly houses stuck together.” When the couple closed on the property, they had grand ambitions for the little homestead. It was hard not to: Mazzarini owns the Manhattan-based interiors firm BHDM and has helmed major projects like the makeover of the Waldorf Astoria in Atlanta, while Grover is in commercial real estate. Both saw the potential in the west-facing lot, which sits up on a bluff, with stairs down to the beach and a long stretch of lawn leading directly to glorious sunsets over the ocean.

“I was going for subtle more-is-more,” says Mazzarini, who designed quietly patterned hardwood floors to mirror the horizontal and vertical lines of the great room’s vaulted ceilings. A Woodard & Greenstein flatweave rug grounds the space with terracotta stripes; along with the wicker chairs—which Mazzarini scored for $100 at White Flower Farmhouse, a favorite local store, and painted a deeply satisfying Green Grove by Benjamin Moore—it sets the palette for the house.

Reid Rolls
  • Mazzarini designed an overscaled pendant shade outlined in whipstitching to draw attention to the graceful round table from Noir, which serves as both dining table and entry focal point. The shade was custom-made by Jack of All Shades.

    Reid Rolls
  • In the powder room, Mazzarini conjured a “dark cocoon with sexy sailor vibes.” Board and batten walls are saturated with Green Grove by Benjamin Moore. The pedestal sink and brass faucet lend a sense of period detail, while Regina Andrew rope sconces add whimsical nautical texture.

    Reid Rolls

But then the pandemic descended. The couple found themselves living full-time not in their Greenwich Village apartment, but in the mostly unrenovated little roost—the carpets had been ripped up and every surface painted white, including the bare plywood floors—and reveling in it.

“In its simple form, the house matches what we like about the North Fork,” says Mazzarini. “And we had the opportunity to watch the seasons, and see the light at every time of day. We got to understand the house and see that it held us really well.” When it came time to renovate in earnest, something about the experience of living through that very slow time made Mazzarini and Grover question their original ambitions.

Mazzarini sketched a much-desired screened porch on a napkin and handed it to the contractor. It’s now a favorite spot for sundowners and dinners. To make it feel like an extension of the living room, they outfitted it with indoor lamps and pillows that they pile inside at night. “It’s totally worth the extra effort,” he says. The upholstery is Sunbrella with an indoor/outdoor rug from Wayfair.

Reid Rolls

Sure, they both yearned for “a big old house,” but they also wanted a place that felt like an escape from their busy city life, and what could be more of an escape than an easy house, one that functioned exactly as it should, exactly as it was? So with construction costs ballooning, Mazzarini and Grover consciously chose a less-is-more approach, one that would deliver the ultimate in carefree living with minimal changes—leaving more time for family and friends, more time to entertain and appreciate their weekend retreat.

  • Mazzarini made a cozy ocean-facing guest room feel like a departure from the rest of the house with wallpaper from Zak+Fox. “Guests feel special in there,” he says. The furnishings were scooped up at local vintage shops, including the dresser, painted white for a clean, cottage-y effect.

    Reid Rolls
  • “I always like a jewel box room,” says Mazzarini of the teeny tiny guest room with a big canopy bed. Found at the RH Outlet in nearby Riverhead, the canopy joins more local vintage treasures. On the bed: a Blarney Woollen Mills blanket from Ireland.

     

    Reid Rolls

Aside from a wall that was closed off to create a proper third bedroom, the floor plan—which comprises three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths and fits tidily into the footprint of the average great room—barely changed. A new window was added in the kitchen while the heights of the rest were evened out, and Mazzarini sketched the plans for a new screened-in porch on a dinner napkin, which the contractor faithfully followed. And then there’s the pool, long coveted, which now sparkles in the back lawn. But beyond that, the changes were largely cosmetic: subtly patterned hardwood floors in the living area, clapboard and beams on the vaulted ceiling, and gallons of white paint covering the original brown siding outside and the dark barnwood paneling inside, to powerfully transformative effect.

The interiors, though, mark a major departure for Mazzarini: The designer, known for creating drama with black and white rooms, opted to layer in some color. “After living in an all-white house through the pandemic, I really wanted to delineate the before and after,” he says. “I would not usually do a multicolored striped rug, or paint the furniture green, or go for a patterned wallpaper in a guest room. But it felt like a very low-risk way of honoring the sun and sea and surf and all the elements we’d experienced in the house.”

  • Mazzarini adores these twin beds, a North Fork yard sale find, because they bring a sense of nostalgia and a bit of architecture to a boxy guest room. They’re topped with Luxor Linens sheets from Walmart—“I like a thick percale; honestly these are my favorite sheets!”—and Etsy pillows. Nothing is too precious, including the overscaled artwork and vintage lamp, both finds from Beall & Bell, another local haunt.

    Reid Rolls
  • “Coming out here is a respite, a place where you can live lightly. The dresser is filled with bathing suits and shorts—I wanted to match that feeling,” says Mazzarini, who deftly added subtle layers of texture in the primary bedroom. A woven rush bed from Williams Sonoma Home and a Visual Comfort lamp join vintage pieces. The artwork above the bed is by Michael McGuire, an artist with whom Mazzarini is collaborating on a new line of work.

    Reid Rolls

To complete the easy-breezy coastal fantasy, Mazzarini dipped into his “fancy hoarder” archive of treasures found over the years in local North Fork shops, upholstered everything in white Sunbrella fabric, put indoor/outdoor rugs underfoot, and dressed the beds in blankets from Target and his favorite sheets from Walmart (yes, Walmart). “That’s the whole vibe of the house,” he says. “We love entertaining, so the beds are always made and everything always looks great, but we want people to feel comfortable, to use everything, and not be afraid that they’ll spill red wine or break a glass. This has always felt like a getaway, and we want our guests to feel the same way.”

The new pool, flanked by CB2 chaises, nestles into a long sweep of lawn that leads to the ocean. “We lived with a big pile of dirt in the backyard forever, but the pool was worth waiting for,” says Mazzarini.

Reid Rolls
  • The circular driveway was enhanced with white pebbles and new landscaping, while the exterior was crisply upgraded with white paint, shutters, and a new Dutch door in high-gloss black from Fine Paints of Europe. The old metal railing was replaced with more charming cross-rail wood fencing.

    Reid Rolls
  • “While humble, there’s something so luxurious about an outdoor shower,” says Mazzarini, who designed this one on another napkin. He added a little window so bathers could catch a view of the water while rinsing off. Newly planted ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas add to the splendor-in-the-grass feeling of it all.

     

    Reid Rolls

When asked if he has any regrets about leaving the “big old house” dream unfulfilled, Mazzarini insists that this house—and the beauty of the light lift—is the real dream. “When you have a precious house, all you do is worry about it. When we leave, we just close the door.”