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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”