In the living area, Laakkonen re-covered her George Sherlock couches in Marimekko prints; the ottomans are covered in a hand-dyed fabric from Christina Kim’s line Dosa. The house was designed to look as if two original barns were joined to a more modern third. The minimally appointed master bedroom.
Like a lot of people who are not originally from New York City, Tiina Laakkonen had a hard time thinking of the Hamptons as “the country.†Laakkonen, a former model and now a fashion stylist who has worked for The Times, grew up in Imatra, a small town in Finland, and likes to joke that she comes from “peasant stock†and doesn’t understand “fancy things like swimming pools.†Her husband, Jon Rosen, who owns the digital post-production company Nucleus Imaging, spent his childhood summers in Amagansett, N.Y., and has an almost Proustian attachment to the area. So when it came to finding a house there, Laakkonen insisted that it be a true country house. Or as she puts it, “I’m not a horsy person, but I like the idea of it.â€
Rosen had no objections. “I had always dreamed of a compound of farm buildings,†he says, citing in particular the former De Menil property on Further Lane in East Hampton, a cluster of more than a dozen restored 18th- and 19th-century houses and barns. The mid-20th-century house they bought, in a pocket of Amagansett surrounded largely by working farms, had in fact been modeled on a potato barn, but it was in such a state of neglect that the only bits worth salvaging were some lumber and patio stones. Not that it stood a chance anyway. “We knew kind of what we wanted,†Laakkonen says, and then corrects herself. “We knew exactly what we wanted.â€
With the help of a team of young architects, the couple mapped out a house that looks as though two original barns and a more contemporary one have been connected by steel and glass walkways. All three were built from the ground up. The older looking barns, with their weathered clapboard facades, contain a guest wing with multiple bedrooms, and a master wing, including his and hers offices. The contemporary barn, a sleek white structure with a zinc roof and a poured concrete floor, is the heart of the house: kitchen, dining and main living areas all in one great room.
While Rosen was better on the “useful stuff†(the basement looks like the command center of a submarine), Laakkonen took charge of the decorating. The house, she says, is “full of Finland.†Laakkonen and Rosen travel there twice a year, and every room contains the spoils of their shopping sprees, from the monolithic cupboard on the second floor landing of the guest wing (“that piece was once somebody’s everything,†Rosen observes) to the spindly Ilmari Tapiovaara chairs in the guest bedrooms. Laakkonen covered a pair of George Sherlock sofas in the living area in a “jolly, quirky†patchwork of Marimekko prints. A bench off the kitchen displays her collection of rice porcelain from the 1940s. There are quilts, also Marimekko, from a vintage shop in Helsinki, and rugs made by her sister-in-law. The wooden floors are painted the gray of every farmhouse in Finland.
“A stylist is all about having control over a manufactured image,†Laakkonen says. “Here there is no attempt to do something visually clever, just to make it a home.†Still, no detail was left to chance. “I’ve been looking at doors for two years,†says Rosen, who amassed about 500 images of doors alone. (Don’t get him started on light fixtures.) Even the imperfections were entirely planned. The walls, for example, are all brush painted, and when it came to the bleached mahogany bookshelves, the couple directed their carpenter to make them look a little random. “I like when you can still see the person’s hand in things,†Laakkonen says. “Anything that is made by hand will age better than something that has been manufactured. It’s the same for fashion.â€
Laakkonen, who has adjusted quite nicely to country living, recently signed a lease on a small “general store†in town where she plans to sell an opinionated selection of Finnish design, including furniture by Ilmari Tapiovaara/Artek, Iittala glass and tableware, and Tikau rugs and lamps. There will also be clothing by Christina Kim of Dosa, jewelry by Ten Thousand Things and lots of other random things that she loves. It will be a total mirror image, she says, of her home and life. Anyone who is so inclined can get the look of her house — up to a point. “People poke around and see a certain simplicity in this house,†Rosen says. “But they don’t comprehend how much work it is to build from scratch. You have to be a little out of your mind.â€
Laakkonen concurs. “It’s very abstract, the idea of building your home,†she says. “It’s a real window to who you really are. This house could have gone so many different ways. It went this way and I love it. I feel very happy here.â€
Original article and pictures take static01.nyt.com site
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