HAMPTONS VOYEUR: Quintessential Cottage in Sag Harbor

WHEN I FIRST SAW Phyllis Landi’s cedar-shingled cottage on a curving half-acre waterfront lot not far from the ridiculously charming village of Sag Harbor, I thought I’d found my dream house. Of course, Phyllis, a freelance TV producer, lives there, and has no intention of moving.

But this house has it all, in my book: location cubed, and the warmth that comes only with age (it was built in 1908). And, like all my favorite houses, it’s quirky: the house, now around 750 square feet, was once twice the size. Owned by two sisters, it was cut in half at some point, and the other half moved down the road a piece.

Phyllis, who bought the cottage in the early ’80s, used it for many years as a weekend place, and now lives there full time, did all the right things. She put on an addition for a kitchen and breakfast nook, opened a wall between the two main rooms to create one expansive living/dining area , and put French doors on the back, bringing in light and leading to a deck that must be glorious in warm weather.

Yes, it’s tiny, but perfect for a woman and her 3-month-old golden Lab puppy, Wilson (there’s one bedroom in the attic loft, and a daybed for guests in the sunroom, above).

It helps that Phyllis has a confident hand with decorating. She painted dark paneled walls and woodwork mostly Linen White (she painted right over the panels in the living room, below, and added wainscotting up to chair rail height in the dining room). She stuck to a neutral palette to keep things serene and uncluttered. Most of the furnishings have a 1930s-’50s aesthetic.

The main pieces are a ‘pretzel’ rattan sofa and chairs in the living room, which came from Secondhand Rose in New York; a blond wood Heywood-Wakefield dining table, hutch, and console, below; Eames chairs in the same pale wood; a shag wool rug and George Nelson daybed from Design Within Reach.

The kitchen has a classic cottage look, all white with pieces of collectible art pottery and Fiestaware providing splashes of aqua and green.

In the attic bedroom, Phyllis built a window seat with storage beneath.

After visiting Phyllis for the first time, I decided I’d move a mountain to get a place like hers. Later, when I found out what it was worth (well upwards of a million), I realized I’d have to move an entire mountain range, which is beyond my capabilities. So I went back to my own cottage in the woods, a tad disappointed, but delighted that such a place even exists.

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A giant shout-out to Carrie of Brick City Love, who blogs about the ongoing renovation of her Newark, NJ, rowhouse, for her patient tutuorial in uploading pictures to WordPress from Flickr. She has saved me untold hours of time and aggravation. THANK YOU CARRIE!!

City Slicker’s Adventures in Cottage Living

…in which she can’t get a reasonable quote to install her fireplace and sees wild turkeys in her backyard.

Photo: Wikipedia

TIME FOR A LITTLE RE-CAP, I think, of home-improvement progress or lack thereof.

First, my ongoing fireplace dilemma. The Malm stands in a corner of the living room in silent reproach. I have failed to find a fireplace company, roofer, contractor, mason, carpenter, or handyman willing to hook it up for less than $3,000. And just when I thought three grand was bad, I got another quote for $4,700. “What’s the big deal?” say people who don’t do that type of work. Apparently it is. A biggish deal, coupled with Hamptons rip-off (this is not the slow season for fireplaces).

It’s not that I actively miss having a fireplace. My house, happily, is tight as a drum. All the windows have storms, and there must be insulation, because the boiler is not gulping oil as rapidly as I feared. It’s warm and cozy here, and a candle or two on a winter’s night is about all the fire I need.

For now, I’ve decided to keep the Malm (even though Design Within Reach said they would take it back), and put it either on the porch or in the cellar for another season or another house. I got it on sale (about $1,300) and it was paid for months ago, so that’s forgotten. But to lay out another few grand now, when I also need a roof, a driveway, a deck, an outdoor shower, and a new bathroom (in that order), is not an appealing prospect.

The Malm can also be used outdoors next spring and summer, on my future deck, without having to hook it up, which will be fun. So the Malm stays in the picture.

My new roof, originally scheduled for December, has been twice delayed. First, by my deciding I wanted to look into a standing-seam metal roof in lieu of the typical asphalt shingle. I found a metal roof guy, looked at his work, got a quote. It wasn’t horribly more than what I’m spending for the shingle, but ultimately I decided against it, because, as cool as it looks, the roof pitch here is not so steep that it would really be seen much — though the fact that it is greener than the petroleum-based, artificially colored Timberline shingles was a consideration. Then there was a major snowfall, and now I’m going to Spain. So the roof is delayed again till early February, giving me more time to decide between Mission Brown and Weathered Wood. Meanwhile, there’s been nary a leak from melting snow, but the roof is 30 years old and looks like crap, and I’ve already given the roofer a 50% deposit, so it’s going to happen.

I’ve got a 30’x30′ parking court going in at the front of the property, edged with railroad ties and covered in 3/4″ chunks of natural-colored stone, also in early February. That will be an improvement over parking in the mud or on the street.

Indoors, not much is new since my daughter and I painted in October. I’m happy with my living room decor, such as it is, and things like Crate & Barrel dish towels hung as art on the wall of the dining area give me inordinate pleasure.

So the winter is proceeding. My next-door neighbor, whom I see every few weekends, said, “Oh, so you made it!” (meaning through the two snowstorms, I suppose). “Easily!” I replied cheerily, the vulnerable feeling of driving a Honda Fit through deep snow behind me for the moment.

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I came back from errands in town to find a dozen wild turkeys hanging out in my backyard. That never happened in Brooklyn. Of course, by the time I got my camera, they had dispersed into the woods. But it reminded me, powerfully, that I’m living in the country. And I like it.

All a Beach House Should Be

A FEW weekends ago, my sister and I enjoyed the loan of a sun-filled mid-century house in Sag Harbor.  It was a perfect weekend at the beach.  Never mind that it was mid-winter. And we never actually got to the beach.

We opened a bottle of wine (<–key!), made a fire in the fireplace, and sat contentedly reading, glancing up occasionally to look through floor-to-ceiling windows over an open, grassy field to the water, not another house in sight.

No small part of my pleasure was the stylish but low-key decor  (the owners are an architect and a photographer/stylist) from sources ranging from Design Within Reach to local barn sales.

The white walls and wide-ranging mix of styles and textures will inspire me when I get to decorating my own beach house (very soon, I hope!)

The house was built in 1962 in the style of Cliff May, father of the California modern ranch house.

It’s for rent any time, year round.  Oh, there’s a pool.