At Home With Derick Brown

The rustling of leaves in the dense forest that runs alongside Old Sag Harbor Road is like an ocean to Derick Brown, who recently moved in on the block. The wind that whisks through the trees creates a sound similar to waves crashing on the shore.

Mr. Brown’s home was finally complete, after years of careful planning. The construction helped the budding architect get his feet wet in the profession. Alongside local veteran architect Blaze Makoid, Mr. Brown erected a modern marvel last year in the scenic woodlands of Bridgehampton.

“It’s quiet and peaceful, and a little disconcerting, because I grew up in the Bronx next to a train station,” the 43-year-old said. There is little hustle and bustle in the home these days as Mr. Brown hangs artwork on the walls. Truffles, a smooth fox terrier, trots on the hardwood floors throughout the three stories, peering out the floor-to-ceiling glass walls that encase the dwelling. Mr. Brown lives there with his husband, who wished not to be named because of his job in asset management in Manhattan. Their primary residence, when they are not at their home away from home in Bridgehampton, is near Lincoln Center.

Growing up, Mr. Brown was often found tracing and reproducing floor plans of random estates on graph paper. The specifics of every home were like a puzzle for him to reconstruct. His masterpiece at 6 years old was a loft that included a catwalk and absurdly large aquariums. “Please don’t judge me on my taste, but I thought then that I’d love to live in that space. But I think it was because me and my siblings lived in a small, cramped apartment,” he laughed.

In 2015, after several different careers, including design management stints at Williams-Sonoma and Kimpton Hotels, he graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City with a master’s degree in architecture. Today, Mr. Brown runs Grey Matters, a design firm specializing in hospitality interiors and landscapes. In the meantime, they bought the land after being unsatisfied with the housing stock on the South Fork. Their desire was for small bedrooms and expansive entertaining space—nothing stuck, and, in fact, the couple thought of ditching the Hamptons for a property in the Hudson Valley for the hiking nearby.

“My impression of the Hamptons was always beach and sand, but that is not our first go-to,” he said. But with just under 4.6 acres of dense thicket, it was exactly what he was looking for.

“We stood in the middle of the property and in every direction all we could see was trees. The rest was history,” Mr. Brown continued.

While he was learning the tools of the trade at Parsons, he was carefully watching Mr. Makoid, and putting what he learned in the classroom to use, designing the four-bedroom, 7,100-square-foot home.

“In my experience, the interior designers that had a greater discipline in architecture were much more imaginative, and weren’t defined by the space,” Mr. Brown said.

“Derick brought his personality to the project,” Mr. Makoid said. “He was able to bring to the table exactly how the house was going to be lived in.”

Nothing was left up to interpretation. Mr. Brown’s approach to designing the interior for the modern home was spare, but elegant.

“A pitfall some people get caught in is that things feel museum-like,” Mr. Makoid said. “Homes are meant to be lived in and entertained in with family and friends. It’s not just supposed to look good.”

Not to say there weren’t challenges during the construction process. The most notable lasting effect is a bird and pest control system that emits the calls of birds of prey to ward off woodpeckers that tore up the side of the home. “It sounded like a machine gun was popping off in our backyard,” Mr. Brown said.

From the road, down a long, windy driveway and through a gate labeled “Driftwood,” the broadside of the rectangular house in a clearing in the woods can be seen from atop a hill on the pebble drive. There are no wings that jut out of any side of it. The diluted black cedar shingles accent translucent walls of glass.

The entry way is double high with glass, creating an atrium feel. The interior staircase weaves all three levels together. The central sculptural stair also acts as a filter between the outside and the living space for additional privacy. Mr. Brown said he wanted to minimize hallways terminating at a wall; in some cases, walls were donned with mirrors to give the home an expansive effect.

From the rear, a 22.5-foot, multi-leaf sliding door unit opens completely to the deck, connecting the interior and outdoors.

“The moving wall is very dramatic,” Mr. Makoid said. “On a day-to-day basis, it’s not the door you want to operate to get back and forth through with a tray of food or drinks, because it’s a big wall of glass that you are moving. But it makes for a blend between outdoor and indoor entertainment.”

The house towers over a negative edge pool. The land slopes downward, giving the home the full effect of being three stories tall.

Inside, the main floor has neutral palettes, reminiscent of a piece of driftwood on the beach—the name given to the estate.

“We seem to buy nothing but black-and-white art, even when we are trying to go for color to make something pop,” Mr. Brown said. He’s partial to contemporary and modern art. They’ve also recently become involved with the New York Academy of Art, and feature student-produced works scattered around the house. The home acts as a light box, with light trickling in through the trees and casting long shadows on the off-white walls. At night, the home glows showing a cross-section of Mr. Brown’s life at home—like a dollhouse.

A cowhide rug is a bit out of place, but it’s a nod to his husband’s upbringing in Texas.

“I really didn’t want things competing with each other. I didn’t want the interiors to compete with the overall architecture of the house. Everything, including the furniture, needed to act in concert,” he said.

The main level features a three-sided fireplace clad in blackened steel, which makes for a loft-like living, dining and kitchen area. A family room is nestled in the back. Roughly sewn together coarse rugs give the living space texture under toe. The nubby ottomans and soft cashmere blanket resting on the couch also add tactile imperfections to the room.

The kitchen—outfitted with easy-to-clean compact countertops with a marble-like finish—smells of freshly baked cobbler and the large middle island is set up in an assembly line to make Puerto Rican pasteles for guests later that day.

Mr. Brown’s personality shines in the basement. They own an extensive wine collection stored in a climate-controlled wine room with blackened steel supports and custom walnut shelving that acts as a backdrop to a custom banquette in the game room, which includes a billiard table, a shuffleboard table, darts and an oversized Scrabble board mounted to the wall.

Truffles, the 10-year-old former show dog, needs help getting up and down the stairs, so Mr. Brown carries her around. In the corner by the stairs and the dry bar kitchenette is a two-player arcade console decorated with scenes from “Ms. Pac-Man” and “Galaga.” A door leads out to a fire pit and sitting area a tier below the pool.

Upstairs, the four bedrooms are all en suite and furnished similarly to each other. The sun rising is diffused through a blackout roller and sheer drapes. Black and graphite are the accent colors, including in the small office nook.

“It may not be the typical colors for a Hamptons summer home, but I don’t think this is the typical location of a Hamptons summer home,” Mr. Brown said. “There are two guys who live here. I was really trying to have softness but never to lose the masculinity.”

The master has its own decking apart from the guest rooms. The leather-upholstered platform bed fits into a wall cutout against a paneled backdrop. Drawers come out from the back wall. Of note, the bathroom has a shower stall that is completely exposed to the outside with floor-to-ceiling glass. It would be odd for an onlooker to be in the dense forest looking to the second floor, but they’d find a room shrouded in steam when the shower is turned on hot.

Through the entire process of designing the home, Mr. Brown acknowledged he brought more to the table then the average Hamptons homebuyer.

“Here I come, wet behind the ears, but I knew what I wanted,” he said. “Fresh out of grad school, where the first thing you learn is that there is this inherent arrogance that comes with being an architect, it was a humbling experience to find that just because you can draw it doesn’t mean it’s going to get built that way.”