New York-based interior designer Tamara Magel is well-known for her luxury residential design work in the United States, especially in the Hamptons, Palm Beach, New York City, Connecticut, Aspen and Westchester. Her portfolio is diverse and includes grand coastal retreats, classic country residences and elegant city apartments.
In many of her projects, Magel allows white and warm beige to dominate the colour palette, using it in walls, ceilings and floors. She also employs the same colour scheme in furnishings and accents in which she favours rounded shapes. The overall effect is elegant and chic but also harmonious and calm.
In a recent renovation in Sagaponack, NY, she managed to achieve just that: a harmonious, luxurious balance. The renovation ended up turning into a complete gutting and restructuring of the older building to meet the summer residence needs of a family of five. Additional bedrooms, and more spacious and open public rooms were at the top of the clients’ need list.
Magel not only had the distinctive style and approach that suited the clients, she also has a direct personal connection to the area where she built her own property from the ground up not long ago.
For the Sagaponack renovation, she took her cues from the colour scheme of the beach using the white of sand-bleached seashells and the warm hues of the sandy beach as the basis of the palette.
White oak wood was used for the custom-created millwork. Giving structure and framing the views, she used black steel panels to frame the windows and doors.
She also employed marble masterfully and sparingly. Marble appears as wall panels in the kitchen, framing the fireplace in the living room, and in a stunning black-and-white version in some of the bathrooms, and in grey and white hues in others.
In the kitchen, for example, she used the Calacatta Vagli Rosato stone, a strongly patterned pink-splashed marble quarried in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps also known as Marble Mountains where Carrara marble also originates and where Michelangelo sourced the stone for his sculpture.
We love the relaxed flow of the rooms and the warmth of the minimalist colour scheme. It is not easy to achieve this kind of balance that is not only supremely elegant but also inviting and livable.
Sagaponack is a former fishing village in the Town of Southampton in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York. It is the most expensive neighbourhood in not just Hamptons but all of the United States.
Sprawling estates and opulent vacation homes dominate the gorgeous beachfront. Celebrities who have owned or own properties here include Drew Barrymore, Turman Capote, Jimmy Fallon, Billy Joel, Caroline Kennedy and Kurt Vonnegut. Tuija Seipell
