Custom closets in East Hampton.

East Hampton work runs from May through October, with one or two off-season trips for closings. The houses on Further Lane, Highway Behind the Pond, and the lanes running south to the ocean are shingled or cedar-clapboard cottages of 4,000 to 12,000 sq ft, sometimes designed by the architect of record and sometimes inherited. The closet program is different from the city: the household's clothing is half what it is in town — a beach-house wardrobe — but the gear is twice as much. Surfboards, paddleboards, beach umbrellas, sand chairs, tennis bags, racquets, fishing tackle, a wetsuit for every household member. The closets are smaller; the garages and the mudrooms are bigger.

The mudroom is the single most important room in an East Hampton project. It is the room between the outdoor shower and the kitchen, and it has to absorb wet bathing suits, sandy towels, dog leashes, and the contents of a beach bag at four in the afternoon. We build mudrooms with a tile or stone floor that drains, open hanging on metal pegs at three heights, lined cubbies for wet boots with drainage trays, and a small towel-warming rail. A dog station with a hand-shower and a drain is increasingly a standard addition.

The garage on the South Fork is rarely just a garage. We design garage walls with slat-wall hanging in solid timber, locker storage for each household member sized to a wetsuit and a surfboard, a tool wall on French cleats for the property's maintenance kit, and an EV charging station in a finished housing. The garage finishes are typically more workmanlike than the interior of the house — polished concrete floor, painted timber, blackened steel — but the joinery is the same as the rest of the project.

The Hamptons run is a weekly truck from late April through October, leaving the Bronx workshop on Thursday morning and arriving on the property by lunchtime. Most East Hampton projects are coordinated with the house manager or property caretaker rather than the homeowner, who is often in town during the install. Friday handover is standard, so the room can be photographed and lived in over the weekend. The drive from the Bronx is two and a half hours, or three depending on the LIE.

Every project is milled at the Bronx workshop — a 14,000 sq ft workshop on the East River — and installed by the same crew that built it. We do not subcontract the install.