Michelle Smith's Sag Harbor Weekend Retreat
Written and Produced by Sarah Storms | Photographed by Genevieve Garruppo
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From city to country with interior designer Michelle Smith.
Designer Michelle Smith in the doorway of her Sag Harbor, New York home.
The door of the Shingle Style cottage in Sag Harbor, New York, cracks open to reveal a woman with rumpled blond hair tucked into a gray turtleneck, hands wrapped around an Astier de Villatte mug. As she stands in the entryway, propping a bare foot against her shin in an offhanded tree pose, Michelle Smith greets the photo crew temporarily invading her weekend retreat—and immediately steps in to serve as the last set of hands in the assembly-line chain. Behind her, bleached white canvas totes hang from slim brass hooks above a line of muck boots, Manolos, and a pillar-like umbrella stand. Not even five feet into her home, it's clear that the transplanted Southerner embodies an innate sophistication that extends to all aspects of her life and work.
With a sensibility that blends the refinement of mentor Daniel Romualdez with the versatility of a modern-day Frances Elkins, Smith exudes the confidence of someone who's been at this for decades. And in a sense she has—even though she only founded her interior design firm, Studio MRS, in June 2012. "I spent most of my childhood at Lowes and Home Depot," says the Louisiana native, whose parents built or renovated homes in their small town northeast of New Orleans every few years. The budding decorator saw this as an opportunity to reimagine her bedroom—one year convincing the staff of a local Benjamin Moore retailer to mix a purple paint inspired by the apartment in Friends, another time installing a chair rail so she could apply her of-the-moment obsession, a paper border, precisely at eye level. "My clients should be thankful that my parents let me get that out of my system at a young age." Smith says, laughing.
Despite such early harbingers of design creativity, Smith initially chose a different career path, moving to New York for law school and then practicing at a large firm. Speaking of her subsequent decision to leave law and pursue interiors, she refers to a whirlwind moment in her personal life. "I was renovating my apartment at the time, and friends and even a partner at my law firm were asking me for help with their own places," says Smith. "I was staying up working on schemes—I [basically] took the plunge overnight." So she signed on with Daniel Romualdez Architects, the firm behind such projects as Tory Burch's color-drenched apartment at the Pierre hotel and Renee Rockefeller's beiged-out Park Avenue aerie, and trained for two years under the architect-designer.
It was only after her childhood best friend asked her to design her dream home, a mansion in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, that Smith considered striking out on her own. Now her roster of clients includes high-profile personalities such as fashion-world darling Prabal Gurung, for whom she recently finished an apartment and showroom. She cites decorators Madeleine Castaing ("her repetitive use of one color was just so her") and Rose Tarlow ("her own living room has vines growing through cracks in the wall”) as two of her biggest influences, and is adamant in her belief that rooms should be "almost accidental looking."
Smith fashioned an elegant makeshift mudroom (painted in Benjamin Moore Parchment) by the front door. A pillar-like stand holds umbrellas, a brass coat rack bears canvas totes, and a nubby coir mat is topped with an array of country-ready footwear. Smith preserved the row of delft tiles affixed to the wall by the home's previous owner.
A bulbous decanter and handmade wineglass take pride of place on the table, above which a hanging lamp by Charles Edwards makes a modern statement.
The Cultivated Palette
Designer Michelle Smith shares the five paint colors that bring her spaces to life.
The Beige
“Frances Elkins nailed the use of that blush/beige/flesh tone that makes a room glow. My favorite wall color is Benjamin Moore Parchment, a match from the book jacket of Stephen M. Salny’s Frances Elkins: Interior Design. The paint changes from pink to flesh, depending on the light.”
The Blue-Green
“I’ve loved Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue ever since I saw it in an advertisement for Will Fisher’s Jamb chimneypieces. I say it’s 100 percent a shade of green, but I have friends who think it’s definitely blue. I like my colors to straddle the line.”
The Gray
“Farrow & Ball Charleston Gray is such a good shade for millwork. It kind of goes purple instead of black, which is why I love it.”
The Black
“I would paint every door this hue (Fine Paints of Europe Black 0029) if people would go for it.”
The White
“I used Papers & Paints Quiet White in my South Carolina project wherever we needed white. It has more depth than most whites—it looks like milk in a glass.”
Smith's self-described "granny meets nautical" style is on full display in the dining room, where the fireplace is flanked by quirky dog sculptures and topped with an unlikely art piece by Allison Maletz.
Smith spends the week at her prewar apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, where the style evokes an offbeat manor owned by a tomboy sophisticate: think periwinkle velvet-upholstered slipper chairs and layered, mismatched art. A six-minute walk away is her white-walled Union Square design studio, where a pink-and-cream striped love seat lives next to floor-to-ceiling built-ins painted in Farrow & Ball Charleston Gray. But her weekend home, in the former fishing village of Sag Harbor, is a bucolic ode to her brand of idiosyncratic elegance. Which is not to say it's any less directional. "It's ‘English Country House comes to Sag,’ but with less red and less seriousness," says the designer.
The downstairs bath is sophisticated and fresh, with unlacquered-brass fixtures, a claw-foot tub, and a bamboo shelf stocked with linens. A patterned Astier de Villatte cup adds a welcome pop of color.
Built in 1790, the home still has its original sloping floors and wide-plank doors as well as much of its eccentricities. Over a lightning-speed one-year renovation, Smith gutted the bathrooms and built a screened porch and kitchen cabinetry. She left untouched a few interesting additions by the former owner, an artist, including Delft tiles randomly placed on the wall of the entryway and a handmade sconce adorning the shingled facade. "I can't stand when a contractor's first reaction is to redo everything" she says "What about all the wavy floors? The years of globbed-on paint? I like to keep character intact "
A downstairs bedroom favors texture over color, with a white-on-white bed and rug in Smith's preferred washed-out hues. Smith's hope for every home she designs? "Above all else, it should be warm and inviting."
An antique writing desk gets its quirk from a gilded chair upholstered in Clarence House Leopard silk velvet.
During her yearlong renovation, Smith added a built-in window seat to the living room, adding precious storage space and providing a prime spot to soak up the sun.
Smith's clearly defined aesthetic—which she describes as "granny meets nautical with flesh tones and burled woods," is as much about what she gravitates to as it is about what she swears off. "I'm so tired of rustic and masculine," she laments. "If I can continue my career without ever installing an industrial coffee table or a vintage marquee letter with Edison bulbs, I will be a happy woman." More design tropes you'll never see in a Michelle Smith-conceived home? Accent walls, white trim, or voluminous bed skirts ("I'm trying my damnedest to make cropped bed skirts a thing!").
Furnishings are a mix of antiques sourced from trips to Texas's Round Top Antique Fair with her family's horse trailer and custom pieces designed by Smith herself. The white lacquered coffee table in the living room is one of the debut pieces from Smith's furniture line, MRS. JG. "It's called the Sag Table because it's exactly what I envisioned for the room," she explains. "I wanted a piece that had the life and quirkiness of a John Dickinson footed table—something modern and weird that makes a quiet statement."
There is little doubt that Smith is making a quiet statement of her own. Next on her agenda: a waterfront Hawaii home and an RV that could well be the pinnacle of trailer design. It may be subtle in the details but, like all of Smith's creations, its visual identity is sure to speak profoundly, to all who stop and listen.
When asked about her favorite room in the house, Smith says, “It’s a tie between the porch and the dining room. Maybe that’s because both places are where the eating and drinking happens.”