Although Albert Sebag’s oceanfront residence in Atlantic Beach, New York, is only a 40-minute drive from the city, the home “really feels like you’ve escaped to New England,” says AD100 designer Neal Beckstedt, who completed the entire land of the property. design, as well as its exteriors, over many years.
This two-story summer house is one of several projects that Beckstedt, the founder of Manhattan-based Neal Beckstedt Studio, and Sebag, the founder and CEO of Guidepoint Global LLC, have worked on together; Beckstedt has also designed or is in the process of wrapping four additional spaces. These include Sebag’s 38,000-square-foot offices in Manhattan, his home in the West Village, a mountaintop residence in Cold Spring, New York, and an old house on the Upper East Side. “Neal really understands what I’m looking for, which sometimes isn’t always clear to me,” says Sebag. “Over the years I’ve learned to trust that he will come up with something amazing, and this approach has never failed.”
The Atlantic Beach house sits on a very rectangular lot, but the existing structure wasn’t well positioned to fully enjoy the views of the surrounding water, Beckstedt explains, so he did a complete teardown. “It was about reimagining everything about this property and how to turn it into an amazing vacation home and beach house,” says the designer. “The problem with these square houses on small lots is that they cut the property in half, so you have a house on one side and a yard on the side,” says Sebag. “I wanted a house with a garden that runs through the property and a pool next to it, because I love a garden with grass and water running parallel to it.”
Sebag also wanted every room to be useful and feel connected to the bayfront. “I was totally on board, even though it was so abstract compared to the houses in the neighborhood,” the owner says of the structure, which he describes as a “contemporary-looking rectangular barn with big windows.” When it was finished, he adds, “People in the neighborhood were blown away by the house, as it really stood out.”
When designing the home’s interior, “I wanted it to have a little edge,” says Beckstedt, noting that many modern homes lack personality. “I wanted this to have some zest.” Sebag likes to sail and fish, and Beckstedt wanted to weave those motifs into the house, too, to design “a Nantucket house, but with a sleek, masculine, modern take.” The house’s ebonized and brushed knotty cedar walls create an effect that resembles the shou sugi ban technique.
