Calm, Cool, and Collected

An art dealer and a movie producer spend their weekends in Bridgehampton, New York, where Francis D'Haene designed them a house.

-- Interior Design, 3/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Art dealer Dominique Levy is taking a spinaround the spacious country house she shares with film producer Dorothy Berwin and their two children. “Dorothy and I came together from different worlds, but our taste is incredibly similar,” Levy says. “And we share a passion for furniture.” Coming from the gray skies of Europe—Levy is Swiss, and Berwin is British—they also relish the sunshine and clear blue of Bridgehampton, New York, so D'Apostrophe Design principal Francis D'Haene installed huge windows virtually everywhere when he renovated and expanded the couple's house.

“We've lived together for 10 years now, collecting along the way,” Levy continues. “And both of us brought things from our past lives as well.” Including, Berwin says with a chortle, a mammoth oak-plank table made by her ex-husband: “The scene of many great dinner parties since it arrived in the U.S.” Levy's inherited possessions range from a 17th-century porcelain tu-reen in the form of a cabbage to a bizarre chair of African animal tusks acquired by grandparents in the Congo. New favorites include a Hella Jongerius table lamp and a roomy sofa covered in chocolate-brown silk.

Setting off these punctuation pieces is a gentle palette—whispers of sea and sand, echoes of beach and cloud, acres of pearly white and pale gray. The combination creates a cocoon of calm after the hectic cacophony of Manhattan. So does the peace and balance established by the symmetry of D'Haene's architecture.

The L-shape house encompasses 5,500 square feet, with two wings of equal size meeting at the double-height living room. D'Haene outfitted this space with huge, 16-foot-high glass doors and windows. To separate it from the dining room, there's a narrow section of wall that houses a double-sided fireplace—Berwin's idea—and, flanking it, two sets of steps up. “The steps define yet connect the rooms, leaving them open to the activity of the house,” D'Haene explains.

When foreign relatives make transatlantic visits, there can be 14 to stay. “People come for a week minimum, so we must all be comfortable,” Levy says. Accordingly, the two guest rooms are upstairs in one wing, above the dining room and kitchen, while the other wing contains the master suite and, below it, the two children's bedrooms. D'Haene provided each wing with a separate staircase. The floating stair to the master suite is like sculpture, a composition of horizontal white-oak treads supported by vertical bronze-patinated rods.

The open-plan master suite shares the top of one wing with Levy's “silent room,” where she meditates. This vast, snowy-white space is out of bounds to children, and its monastic quiet is underlined by a horizontal wall text by Roni Horn, reading Her eyes were as hard as two old mountain ranges seen in the distance.

A partner at New York's blue-chip L&M Arts, Levy spends her weekdays among paintings and sculpture by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. In Bridgehampton, she hangs edgy contemporary art. Vidya Gastaldon, a multimedia and performance artist, sketched the abstract pencil drawing in the dining room. Alexander Ross painted the glossily surreal canvas in the living room; Anselm Reyle contributed a large relief in crumpled aluminum foil, hanging over the fireplace opposite.

As for sculpture, stellar vintage furniture fills the bill. “Good furniture is sculpture. It's a work of art per se,” Levy says. So, too, in her view, are chandeliers, and almost every room offers an example. Note the 1950's orange and red glass flowers in the mudroom and the 1920's smoked glass in the kitchen. The living and dining rooms belong to the whimsical-industrial constructions of Gino Sarfatti. Levy calls him the “master of lighting. He created the neon-tube lamp long before Dan Flavin.”

Berwin's credits include producing On a Clear Day, and her professional influence makes itself felt most clearly in the basement screening room. It's decked out in flamingo pink, cerise red, and wild orange, with luxurious suede upholstery on the reclining chairs.

“Francis truly understands space and proportions. And he loves simplicity. In fact, this house is not minimal enough for him,” Levy says. “His rigor tamed me—but only so far.”

Previous spread: In the living room of a house that D'Apostrophe Design renovated and expanded in Bridgehampton, New York, a corner is anchored by a Vladimir Kagan settee and a James Donahue lounge chair, both 1950's, as well as George Condo's oil on canvas. Flooring is concrete.

Left: A Roland Rainer cocktail table, which dates to the 1950's, stands near a pair of French 1940's slipper chairs upholstered in wool shag. Above, a work by Anselm Reyle combines aluminum foil and a wooden panel. Right: The glass ashtray on the table's glass mosaic top is also '50's.

Opposite: Gino Sarfatti designed this chandelier in 1962. The custom sofa is by Francis Sultana. Behind it is an oil on canvas by Alexander Ross.

Opposite: A Sarfatti chandelier from 1952, Rainer's 1956 chairs, and an oak table anchor the oak-floored dining room. Along the wall, a Hella Jongerius lamp and a Dutch 17th-century porcelain tureen sit on the Charlotte Perriand sideboard, circa 1950.

Top: Custom bronze-patinated brass rods support the white-oak treads of the staircase up to the master suite. Bottom: In the kitchen, glass mosaic tile clads the walls. The counters are concrete.

Top: In the meditation room, the aluminum and resin letters of a wall text by Roni Horn run above Francis Sultana's custom daybed. Bottom left: A screen of mirrored glass tile separates the master bedroom from the bathroom. Bottom right: In the master bath, a laminated-glass partition framed in stainless steel stands on a limestone-clad plinth between the fiberglass tub and the shower.

PROJECT TEAM LINDSEY GOLDBURG; DAVID MCALPINE: D'APOSTROPHE DESIGN. PAULA HAYES: LANDSCAPING CONSULTANT. LETTIERI CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT THROUGH WRIGHT: SETTEE (LIVING ROOM). THROUGH GALERIE ERIC PHILIPPE: LOUNGE CHAIRS. WILLIAM H JACKSON COMPANY: FIRE SCREEN. ART-IN-CONSTRUCTION: FLOOR INSTALLATION. THROUGH GALERIE KREO: DRUM TABLES (LIVING ROOM), CHANDELIERS (LIVING, DINING ROOMS), LAMP (DINING ROOM). LINCOLN WOOD PRODUCTS: CUSTOM WINDOWS (LIVING, DINING ROOMS). THROUGH DAVID GILL GALLERIES: CUSTOM SOFA (LIVING ROOM), SIDE-BOARD (DINING ROOM), CUSTOM DAY-BED (MEDITATION ROOM), CUSTOM BED (BEDROOM). ANN SACKS: TILE (KITCHEN). REMIK STUDIO: COUNTER INSTALLATION. PIERRE MESGUICH MOSAIK: TILE (BEDROOM). PAUL RENWICK: BEDSPREAD. WATERWORKS: TUB, FITTINGS (BATHROOM). THROUGHOUT FARROW & BALL: PAINT.