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HC&G May 2005 Suddenly Last Summer By:  Valerie Cruice    Room after room, the calm, cool interiors of this field side home belie the five month decorating frenzy that preceded the owners arrival for a vacation last summer.  Scrambling from Gebruary to the Fourth of July, interior designer Scott Sanders maintained a clear vision of a fresh and comfortable country house for a well-traveled couple with three teenage daughters.  With little time to collect objects for the finishing touches, Sanders says he made a "mad dash to get it done" and shopped locally.  "I cleared out every store in the Hamptons," he says.  The result is a 14,000 square foot house steeped in an elegant Hamptons vernacular and embodying his design firm's slogan. "Fresh American Style."    "It's a traditional home done with  a fresh approach," explains sanders who is based in both New York and Miami.  "It's taking elements from Americana and reusing them in today' aesthetic." For example, a deacon's bench has been repurposed for the front hallway, traditional ball and claw foot dining room chairs are upholstered in a sleek robin's egg blue and the living room, a two-story space shaped like a barn, is city chic in sophisticated trappings.     Sanders is a graduate of the "School or Ralph Lauren."  In fact, he founded the company's retail interior design department before establishing his own deign firm, which embraces a similar aesthetic.  Sanders remains a big fan pf Ralph Lauren and often uses his furnishings in projects.  "Every season Mr. Lauren comes out with different lines---and they're not pretentious.  There is an underlying current, a sense of familiarity, an amazing mixture of new and old and a great sense of color." he explains.    Likewise, the family whose house Sanders decorated in five months--which is warp speed in the decorating world---wanted a summer retreat that is unpretentious, yet well designed.    He started with a blank canvas: a very large, very white, new house with little character except for extraordinary light and a gorgeous view of nearby fields.  He took a color cue from the nearby Atlantic's luminosity and infused the rooms with hues that respond well to the outdoors.    "Because it's a summer home, they were willing to experiment with color, so they gave me a bit of a free had," Sanders says.  The living room has multiple shade of a soothing blue that paradoxically make for a bold impact.  The family room is an earthier tan, taken from the stone fireplace and spiked with a bit or orange.  The teenage daughters chose the color of their own rooms---fun colors like candy pink and apple green.    Though major items, such as fabrics, rugs and furniture, were purchased in New York, practically every accessory was collected from Hamptons sources.  "They were adamant about using local things," Sanders says.  At stores like Home Nature, Nellie's, Christopher Fischer, Bloom and English Country Antiques, he found pewter lamps and candlesticks, topiaries, mirrors, sea shells, coral and all manner of tidbits to give the house a sense of place, which sanders describes as a "kind of a beach feel, by not beach-y"/    Designing the rooms with off-the-shelf products for expediency he made maximum use of elements like light fixtures from Restoration Hardware for the family room and ottomans, which are covered in white leather, from Crate & Barrel for the girls' computer room.  The crazy green shag pillows are from a sale at Macy's. "Something expensive with something inexpensive can work, if chosen carefully and if you're aware of what you're trying to make happen," Sanders explains.    His deft use of old and hew hearkens back to his youth in Ohio. "My Midwestern sensibility is rooted in the idea that you don't throw anything away," he says. (Sanders has been known to take old metal or wood furniture to an automotive paint shop for a modern new finish.) "I love reusing pieces.  One of my favorite projects was a pool house where everything in it I either designed or purchased at a second-hand furniture store. It was phenomenal."    With a beautiful color on the wall, a great rug on the floor and high-quality fabrics on the furniture, Sanders advises you can experiment with the accessories in a room.  The Hamptons is filed with wonderful antique shops. Sanders say, "It's amazing what you can find out here."  Especially in this case---in record time.

27 WEST 24TH STREET, SUITE 803  NEW YORK NY 10010   ·   TEL 212 343 8298  ·   FAX 212 343 8299  ·   info@scottsandersllc.com