Step Inside One Hamptons Home that Was Inspired by Coastal Living

“We are not fussy people,” a Manhattan investment banker recently said, and by that she means Australians. “It’s a beach mentality—surfing and swimming—we don’t take ourselves too seriously.” So when she and her husband, also a native Australian, decided to build a summer house that would complement the New York City apartment that they share with their three sons, the Hamptons seemed the most logical location. “Being very close to the water, it’s very resonant of where we grew up,” she says. “And Elizabeth has a long family history in the area, too.”

That would be Elizabeth Pyne Singer, a designer at McMillen Inc., the venerable Manhattan decorating firm that has been famously run for decades by members of her own family, namely her mother Ann Pyne—McMillen’s current president—and her maternal grandmother, the late Betty Sherrill. (Launched in 1924, it’s the second-oldest decorating business in the United States, and one that has been headed entirely by women since it was launched in 1924, just a few months after Dorothy Draper & Company.) McMillen’s legendary portfolio of grand rooms for grand clients—famously the museum-quality French and English interiors that founder Eleanor McMillen Brown helped assemble for the Ford automotive family in the 1950s, some of which recently sold at Christie’s—belies its easy familiarity with crafting casual settings for family-friendly living. “That’s not the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name McMillen,” the client admits, “but it’s a company full of talented, experienced people, and they all want each other to do well. I got the benefit of all that.”

The client and Pyne Singer bonded over a shared appreciation of rooms that can handle children running in and out all day. (The Australian couple have three sons, and Pyne Singer and her husband have two youngsters). They also found an especially gratifying common ground at a micro level. “I’ve spent more than 20 years in the banking industry, so I have a really detailed, methodical approach to doing things, and Elizabeth is creative but she also doesn’t leave any detail undone,” says the client, who decided to hire an interior designer after realizing that the house—a crisply handsome Shingle-style affair built for them by Hamptons architect William A. Schulz—was just too daunting to handle on her own. Several interviews with other design-industry talents later, she settled on Pyne Singer. “Elizabeth had a very clear understanding of the budget and even produced spreadsheets. That discipline made me much more comfortable as well as more flexible.” Pyne Singer laughs and says, “Perfectionism has sometimes hindered me in my own life, but I feel most comfortable double- and triple-checking everything. I need to feel good about what I’m selling.”