Siyu (Lucy) Liu refused to copy herself. As a prolific architect, especially on the East End (she counts having designed ten houses last year alone), she was determined to make a true custom house, something unlike any of her other residences. Although she is happy to work with high-end developers on spec houses, Liu is particularly excited when allowed to design a home that requires her full creativity. “I don’t have a particular style as an architect,” she says from her Southampton studio, “but I cater to a client’s style.”
For this seven-bedroom Hamptons house she was commissioned to design for a couple with two teenage children, she began with the husband’s sketch. “He’d drawn a floor plan on Excel,” she recalls, “and it was a good diagram of their thoughts for what they wanted the house to be. It gave me a direction to follow.” Upon meeting with the couple in her office, Liu immediately began sketching out a house that would work as well on the inside as on the outside. “That’s the hard part of architecture, because a good floor plan does not mean it results in a house with beautiful facades.”
Despite numerous iterations and design schemes that the couple were continuing to vet and like, at a certain point in the process they were ready, according to Liu, “to give up. They were tiring.” In fact, they asked her to revisit one of her previous designs, but, adds Liu: “I insisted they stay on the creative journey with me.”
What now occupies the site is a cedarclad structure that is a subtle amalgam of vernacular, traditional and contemporary forms. Since zoning forbids any house to be higher than 32 feet from the existing grade, Liu cleverly dug a foundation five feet lower than the elevation of the rear property line. “The contractor complained that I built a house in a hole,” she says with humor. “As a result, the finished house doesn’t look too tall or imposing from the street. It blends in with the surrounding houses and land. I’m so proud of this house because it really is custom, and the clients let me be creative.”
A ceiling fixture from Apparatus adds a sculptural note to the foyer.
The living room features a pair of custom Italian sofas and a rug by Armadillo. Vintage armchairs were reupholstered in a Holland & Sherry fabric.
In the kitchen, custom bar stools are by David Gaynor Design, and the custom cabinetry is by Ciuffo Cabinetry. The backsplash and countertops are clad in Taj Mahal quartzite slabs.
In the office, curtains made of Romo fabric filter the sunlight. The desk is by RH.
The playroom features ottomans from Room & Board and daybeds by Monte Design.
The exterior of the house is clad in Alaskan cedar siding.
So, too, was this the experience of interior designer Viannerys Abreu, who, like Liu, had never before worked for the enlightened clients, but came to them through word of mouth. Abreu admits to “being a ‘neutral’ designer who struggles with using too much color,” but she began her work using a single swatch of green grasscloth that the home owner wife had been holding onto. “She told me she wanted some colorful rooms, though we agreed to keep the main public, open-plan rooms neutral.”
Always eager to please a client, Abreu departed from her usual preferred grays and whites to configure select rooms as exercises in pure color. “If we’re going to do the TV room in blue, then let’s make all of it blue, but use earthier versions of the color—the blue of the sky or the ocean,” she says. As for the green office, she gladly used that same grasscloth, but also introduced elsewhere the greens of trees and grades of wood.
Another arrestingly original moment Abreu introduced was a custom watercolor-painted wallpaper for the primary suite, a scene that references clouds if you’re in full REM dream mode. “We went through a few iterations of that color,” she says, “because grays are tricky in that they can look too warm or too cool.”
Many of the home’s rooms are also accented with novel lighting fixtures, something that Abreu thinks is critical to good design. “I always say to clients that we are going to spend a big part of the budget on lighting because the light emitted and the fixtures themselves make a big difference.”
At completion, both Liu and Abreu are notably pleased with their work. Liu got to design a house that didn’t have “double gables, the design thing of the moment,” while Abreu proudly admits to coming in on budget, on time, and satisfying her clients. “I don’t think every designer can claim to have satisfied their clients one hundred percent, but that happened here.”