Springs Spectacular: Sasha Bikoff

Renowned designer Sasha Bikoff, known for her eye-popping maximalist interiors, began her Hamptons house journey on a relatively calm note: a modest “shack” with immodest siting.

Situated on a plateau overlooking Gardiners Bay in Springs, East Hampton’s mythical hamlet, the “go-to decorator for Manhattan’s well-heeled millennial set” didn’t think twice about purchasing the property in 2017. That marked the start of a three-year journey that culminated with what is truly her dream house. But getting there had its share of nightmares.

“When I bought the place, I felt lucky to just have power and hot water there. Both were inconsistent!” Sasha recalled. “I lived this kind of bohemian lifestyle there for two years, always having friends staying over with me. But eventually I knew that I was ready for my ‘big girl house.’”

Trading up to a more adult house was all about patience. It took Bikoff two years simply to get the permits necessary to break ground, and another year to build. “It would have been done sooner, but COVID hit and we had to pause construction,” she said. “I ended up renting a house in Napeague.”

The designer was finally able to move into her new house in October 2020, along with her then fiancé, Adam Cooper. The couple got married at the house the following August.

Bikoff is especially proud that she built the house from the ground up by herself, “in a town where building is not always that easy.” But she was determined to do the project because of the magical property and a very strong vision. “I was so inspired by the light and the endless views. That’s what drove my design.”

That inspiration manifested itself in a house that is deceptively spare at first glance. Indeed, it almost resembles a cluster of small event tents; two simple white single-gable structures with an absence of detail. Within, however, the décor pyrotechnics are there in spades, which is the Bikoff oeuvre. Back in 2018, at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York, the designer’s career was turbocharged by her star turn of a staircase: a dizzying mix of color and pattern that was a tribute to the Italian born Memphis design movement of the early 1980s, what with its jarring color combinations and whacky geometric patterns. While considered tasteless by traditionalists, the style caught the eye of icons such as fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and rock legend David Bowie, who both amassed significant collections of Memphis furniture.

Bikoff eschewed this aesthetic for her own Springs getaway, which is predominantly an exercise in pale wood tones and white, with an asterisk. One guestroom is completely lined in grass cloth the color of a Triscuit, with a headboard constructed from a trio of wildly painted Versace surfboards capping a bed adorned with even more Versace in the form of a comforter and pillows. This explosion of pattern and color is the result of a bona fide collaboration between Bikoff and the storied Italian fashion house. These pieces and more premiered as Sasha Bikoff x Versace at Milan’s high-style design fair, Salone de Mobile, along with being displayed at Art Basel Miami. Vogue magazine breathlessly covered the collection. How did this happen? “I was just sitting on my couch minding my own business when I got a call from Versace,” Bikoff recalled. “They said, ‘We want to collaborate with you on a home collection.’” This is the kind of stuff that just happens to someone known for taking design risks gladly and living a genuinely real “Gossip Girl” sort of life.

In the same room, chairs are upholstered in beach blankets purchased literally on the beach in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Another bedroom is papered in a mixture of sea life and foliage while yet one more bedroom features a provocatively modern and personal take on toile de Jouy. The primary bedroom is devoid of color, yet upon inspection is ripe with texture; the walls are clad in Japanese lime plaster, and the bed is dressed like a bride, in white embroidered tulle. But it’s in the baths where Bikoff returns to her signature maximalist style.

The primary bath features a tub completely surrounded by a world map mosaic made entirely from sharply cut ceramic tiles. It’s of Bikoff’s own design, as is another tile in the guest bath decorated in an exploded black and white bandana pattern. All of this Krazy Kat expressionism seems harnessed in the main living space, where it’s all about the views of lawn meets bay meets sky uninterrupted by a soothing organic palette. At night, however, everything changes courtesy of Lutron’s Ketra LED smart lighting system, which not only can mimic daylight and candlelight, but can also wash the space in dramatic color. Bikoff favors party pink for after dark entertaining.

Even the garage was carefully considered. Rather than workmanlike, the interior is as finished as most houses, with a black and white checkerboard floor, bold art. Doors on both the front and back swing open to allow the space to serve as not only a home for Bikoff’s vintage Mercedes convertible (canary yellow) but also as a location for dance classes and, of course, parties. After all, doesn’t a designer known for being the life of the party need her own party space, even out at the beach? In Sasha Bikoff’s glamorous galaxy, the answer is a resounding “yes.”