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It was with breathless speed and impossible fortune that designer Max Sinsteden landed his summer house in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. The sprint began at 6 p.m. one Friday when his husband, Jordan Rundell, shared an intriguing listing not far from their existing vacation spot: a former chauffeur’s cottage built in the early 1900s (and expanded numerous times since) overlooking several acres of private marsh. By Saturday afternoon, the house was theirs. In the scant hours in between, they tidied their current place, showed it, and sold it; both deals were done by Monday morning. Six months later, renovation complete, Sinsteden and Rundell were hosting a Memorial Day bash.
Floors painted in high-gloss Cedar Key by Benjamin Moore create a beach-ready foundation for the large space. The 19th-century French gilt faux-bamboo tabouret is in Schumacher’s Atwood Épinglé. Ocean etching by Barbara Newcomb.
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Sinsteden (right) with his husband, Jordan Rundell, and their son, Everett, on the staircase with a suitably nautical rope handrail.
Max Kim-BeeThe new cottage is less layered than Sinsteden’s typical work (including the apartment in New York where he spends half the year), because the point here is to finally enjoy breathing room—room to host, to parent (the couple has a young son, Everett), and to play with flowers, sometimes all at once. In this rambling space, if the mood calls for a seated dinner for 24, the furniture just shimmies around to make it happen. (Take that, Manhattan.)
The antique reproduction of a 16th-century Dutch brass chandelier bathes the dining room in candlelight. The 18th-century English oak farm table is surrounded by Louis XVI–style chairs that once sat in designer Kevin McNamara’s Hamptons house.
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The Georgian mahogany stool is upholstered in Schumacher’s Wilder; tablecloth, D. Porthault.
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The dining room’s mahogany bookcase holds some of Sinsteden’s “rather extensive” dish collection.
Max Kim-BeeThat’s not to say that Sinsteden approached the project with any less intention, though. It’s filled with references from his personal design encyclopedia: The cipollino rosso marble–topped center table and patterned Marmoleum floor in the enormous entry hall—which had been a living room but “immediately called out to become a foyer”—nod to the iconic Sutton Place apartment of Bill Blass, on which young Sinsteden had a chance to work; wood-framed glass screens designed by his mentor David Easton for a client’s Manhattan loft (and later scooped up by Sinsteden at auction) now divide the dining and living areas of the too-large great room. “I am not a huge fan of open-plan living,” says Sinsteden, who also reversed the space’s original layout to prioritize water views and abundant light. “I figured that we would mostly use the dining table in the evenings, so all the more reason to give the view to the living room.”
Bill Blass’s Sutton Place apartment provided the inspiration for what is now the entry foyer, where Sinsteden replaced the old linoleum tiles with custom-painted Marmoleum floors from De Bruyn. The Lutyens-style chairs were found at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler Antiques. A collection of seashells and sailor’s valentines hang on the simple white board walls.
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The Italian Neoclassical-style table in the entry hall came from the shop of late antiques dealer John Nelson.
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The 19th-century English glazed bookcase holds a pair of trompe-l’oeil cloisonne geese. “They have brought on so many fits of laughter!” says the designer.
MAX KIM-BEEThe new floor plan here is brazen, breaking from both the original house plan and convention itself, but Sinsteden has earned the right to go rogue after designing alongside the greats—his professional family tree includes former bosses like Easton and Charlotte Moss. Plus, he has conviction. “Why waste an enormous room on a table and benches, you might think,” says Max of the expansive foyer, “but it’s perfect—we all gather here and stand around and snack and chat.” Kids included: “As it turns out, there are actually a lot of fine things that aren’t breakable. This set of silver coasters was my grandmother’s, but you know what? Everett can just throw them around and they won’t get hurt.”
Initially, Sinsteden had planned a light kitchen makeover, but ended up going full gut-reno. He topped the new cabinets with IKEA butcher-block counters (also used as floating shelves), and had Kent Steel design a custom range hood. The floor tiles are cut Marmoleum; accordion wall lights, Balineum.
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In the bar, IKEA wood counters, skirted in a Rogers & Goffigon fabric, hold a brass sink that Sinsteden sourced in Morocco. A painting by Wayne Pate that Sinsteden gave to Rundell for their second wedding anniversary hangs next to an 1830s English mahogany rack from Thakeham Furniture in the U.K.
MAX KIM-BEEAt not-yet-two years old, Everett would be forgiven for any silver-related misdeeds; in any case, this is a hands-on house where plenty of items that pass for decoration are actually used on the daily—18th-century porcelain included. “We use so much of everything. I hope that there’s not a book in my bookshelves that we haven’t read or china in the cabinet that we haven’t used many times,” Sinsteden explains. “Using things gives them life—it gives them meaning and patina.”
“I hope that there’s not a book in my bookshelves that we haven’t read or china in the cabinet that we haven’t used many times.”
MAX SINSTEDEN
Reducing how many things lived in this cottage was a challenge that far outstripped the odd room configurations. “Editing…I’m not good at it. I’m a maximalist,” Sinsteden admits. “I feel lucky that in my relatively short life, I’ve collected so many precious and wonderful things, and here, I wanted to let them breathe.” That meant being extra careful about the intensity of the fabric patterns and holding back from cramming the walls with art. Walls almost uniformly went to white (Benjamin Moore Sea Pearl, a favorite discovery for which he credits Gil Schafer), while floors vary between soft-on-the-feet Marmoleum cut in a diaper pattern and high-gloss off-white paint. “It makes the rooms sparkle. Anywhere near the water, that reflection of the light and the mimicking of water is so exciting and beautiful.”
The primary bedroom was originally twice its current size with a “terrible half-moon window”—Sinsteden divided it to add a new dressing room and en-suite bathroom. The curtains are made from a linen tablecloth fabric printed in Hungary and topped with a Nancy Lancaster–inspired valance. The bed, which Sinsteden designed for a project and purchased when the client moved, is dressed in D. Porthault shams and an antique double wedding ring quilt.
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Sinsteden transformed a windowless walk-in closet into a cozy bedroom for son Everett with the help of his father, who built the bookcases; the Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler wallpaper was custom-printed to match a set of D. Porthault sheets.
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The wall-to-wall jute carpeting by Fibreworks continues into the dressing room, which is lined in a paper-backed striped fabric. The custom unlacquered brass closet system was fabricated by Palmer Industries with components typically used for bar shelves. Hanging lantern, Vaughan.
MAX KIM-BEEThe effect is an inner-lit, serene scene punctuated by fine and fabulous things: china, books, copper pots. Baskets, in particular, are bit of an obsession. “I buy them everywhere I go!” he says. “Mexico City, the islands, India, Italy, at IKEA, in the English countryside, at the Brooklyn flea market.” (More than one lucky auction find came with a midcentury-era tag from the Dior boutique in Paris.) What’s more, they’re in constant rotation, used for everything from flowers to picnics to holding slips of paper during games of Celebrity with friends.
For Sinsteden, that’s what’s beautiful: not just having stuff, but using it. Throw parties, throw coasters—live a little.
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The card room, where Sinsteden hosts a weekly game of canasta in the summer, holds a quartet of Colefax & Fowler chairs and a bamboo-and-brass game table. The rear hallway used to be a closet but was opened up to create a passageway from the front of the house to the back; decorative painters Chris and Nick Loew added the trompe-l’oeil ashlar masonry in the hall.
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“This house necessitated a pegboard wall,” says Sinsteden, who had decorative painters outline each pot and pan in varying shades of blue to represent copper, brass, or bronze. An English antique pine-and-bronze table is now the kitchen island.
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Sinsteden covered the walls of the powder room with nautical charts from his father, an avid sailor; the sink base from Palmer Industries is topped with an Urban Archaeology basin and custom P.E. Guerin hardware.
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Tiles by Subway Mosaics are arranged in a basket-weave pattern in the primary bath. Stone counter and sinks by Urban Archaeology; faucets, Lefroy Brooks; wall lights, Balineum.
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The blue-and-white thread continues in the guest bathroom; pedestal sinks, Crosswater; tile, Daltile.
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The linen closet is packed full of summery stripes and D. Porthault florals.
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Guests are treated to an indulgent soak in the Signature Hardware cast-iron skirted tub with Drummonds fittings; above it is a photograph by Read McKendree.
Max Kim-Bee
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 17 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
