Designer Tony Melillo Lists ATM Beach House, A Home Inspired By His Clothing Brand

When Tony Melillo first laid his eyes on the modern, box-like beach house at 31 Gilberts Path, nestled into Amagansett’s dunes, it transported him to another time.

The year was 2012, and the clothing designer was preparing to launch his eponymous clothing brand — ATM, which stands for Anthony Thomas Melillo — with Barney’s. Leading up to the presentation, he knew he needed to make an impact.

And so he presented the capsule collection — a suite of luxe, yet basic, T-shirts in just four styles and three colors — inside a big, black box.

“It was my idea of the ATM black box, meaning a version of what a bank’s ATM machine is, in a sort of funny way,” he said during a recent telephone interview. “So that box structure, to me, was really cool — and I had wanted to do a black house. It ties it back, actually, in an interesting way.”

Following a gut renovation and reimagining of the exterior, the ATM Beach House — complete with Blackwood Shou Sugi cedar wood siding, charred using a special Japanese technique — is currently listed for just shy of $4.7 million with Sotheby’s International Realty.

“As much as it’s a bittersweet thing,” Melillo said of parting with the property, “I think once the right people come around and they understand the house and appreciate it, I’ll be happy to know that I can pass it off to someone great.”

When the designer and his husband, Lance Miletich, were first shopping for a home in the Hamptons, it was their friend Kelly Klein — ex-wife of designer Calvin Klein — who suggested the Amagansett dunes as a family-friendly place, perfect for their then-1-year-old son, Max.

“I didn’t know the dunes that well, but she had grown up going and having a house in the dunes with her mom,” Melillo said. “We realized the dunes are amazing, and we saw this house, which had great bone structure, I felt, even though it needed a full gut, and we went from there.”

They bought the three-bedroom, two-bath home in 2017 and started minor upgrades to the 1,800-square-foot space, Melillo said. The couple power-washed the exterior, changed out the countertops, and updated the electric system and air conditioning. But, other than that, they simply lived in it for the next year and a half before any major renovations began, he said.

“It was more about, ‘Okay, I love this box, so now I can figure out how to decorate it and design it,’” Melillo said, adding, “When we moved in, we wanted to sit there for a minute and understand it better, so we basically — just literally — painted the whole thing, from the floors to the walls, white.”

With construction permits in hand, Melillo surveyed the work that needed to be done. The cedar on the façade needed to go — “It was a lot of these very tall planks, which were beautiful, but they were all rotten,” he said — and the interior was outdated, from the kitchen and bathrooms to the walls and the floors.

But there was potential, he said, and that was all that mattered.

“In my head, I’m a minimalist in my design no matter what I do, and I also like comfort,” he said. “In the fashion world, where I design clothes for ATM, our clothes are very minimal. They’re not ornamented, they’re not done up with bells and whistles on them. They’re built from the inside out, which is the way I like to look at it. I like to make sure that structure, the foundation — and this goes for the house, too — is really beautifully done, so I don’t have to really put a lot of crazy ornaments on it.”

With a vision in place, the 0.68-acre property underwent a transformation, including terrazzo stone in the courtyard and imported Blackwood siding from Canada as the exterior — the dark façade that Melillo planned to juxtapose against a light and airy interior.

It felt like the element of surprise, he said, which is why he chose light Dineson Douglas fir plank flooring and expanded the 6½-foot windows to 8 feet, in order to bring in more natural light. He also widened the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors — one of his favorite spots in the house — which lead to a spacious deck with a Paloform fire pit.

“When I wake up, my first thing I do is, I usually turn the coffee on and Lance, my husband, goes to the sofa and throws on a blanket, and I go to this really nice little chaise lounge, which is in front of the sliders,” he said, “and I sit there and have my first coffee.”

The custom VIPP kitchen from Denmark features an island with seating, a VIPP stovetop and other appliances by Miele. The indoor-outdoor living space includes an accent wall and restoned fireplace, and the primary suite with a private deck is enveloped by greenery, complete with a JEE-O’s Soho 01 freestanding outdoor shower.

“I love our outdoor shower,” Melillo said. “It’s pretty much one of my favorite things in the house. It has great water pressure, it’s open on the deck so you’re not enclosed in anything.”

For an additional cost, the interior furnishings by Wyeth, curated by ATM, are all available to be purchased separately.

“I think it’s perfect pieces,” Melillo said. “I always say that, once again to go back to designing clothes or home, it’s picking the perfect pieces — which, you know, I get it. It’s not easy and it’s a talent and it’s something that people pay for, basically — in-home design, as well as when they shop. They want to buy things and they don’t really know; you kind of take the lead of either the salespeople, or the brand that you want to follow.”

Home design has allowed Melillo to flex a different creative muscle, he said, and while this Amagansett project marks his first renovation on the East End — following another design project in Florida — he expects it won’t be his last.

“I kind of realized I love home design,” he said. “The older I get, I think it’s something that I’m gonna probably explore a lot more — in terms of not only home design for myself, but I love furniture, I love home design, I love that whole world. I think it’s a hot area to be in right now as a business.”