#robin standefer

Country House Weekend, No. 9

Roman & Williams in Montauk

World of Interiors described the second home of Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch as, '...something quite remarkable:  a weekend getaway so filled with the curious that it's more Kunsthammer than beach cabana.'

The designers took an unremarkable 1950s 'contractor special' with a 1980s addition, and without undertaking wholesale renovation, were able to completely change the feeling and spirit of the place.  The house itself serves as both a weekend retreat and a design laboratory.  The exposed frame ceilings have found their way to the Facebook mess hall.  THe tambour walls have been used in the Standard and Royalton Hotels.

The furnishings are equal party indulgent luxury and laidback surfer.  The Danish bufallo leather sofa, draped in angora and indigo, invites post-surf snoozes.  The rosewood Sergio Rogdrigues table, outfitted with Ted Muehling candlesticks, encourages gatherings and revelry where evenings are candlelit and filled with friends while sparks from the backyard fire float up against a late summer moon.

We've had this massive book for ages, but couldn't seem to review it because we couldn't stop looking at it. Roman and Williams is an interior design firm made up of husband and wife team Robin Standefer and partner Stephen Alesch, that has been a powerhouse in creating iconic spaces for over a decade now. After they were production designers on Zoolander they rightly decided to put their energies into spaces that weren't going to be torn down in 6 weeks. After becoming close friends with them on set, Ben Stiller hired them to design his living spaces and even writes the foreword in this incredible 320 page tome. Things We Made is a thorough, wonderfully enjoyable journey with the designers through some of their most breathtaking yet comfortable spaces, many of which you'll recognize including The Ace Hotel in New York, Stumptown Coffee, The Standard New York, and of course Kate Hudson's and Ben Stiller's places (we were just there last week).

The thing that stands out right away is how different each of the projects are from one another. As Stiller alludes to in his foreword this is possibly because of the differences in the partners, and their ability to start the process traditionally and then proceed to mess things up.

One thing the reader may notice when looking through the images, but will certainly notice when physically in the spaces themselves, the self proclaimed non-experts are comfortably imperfect. Many other design firms try to nail the same aesthetic but can be guilty of being mistakenly perfect which often results in a space that is too curated, and cold & presumptuous.

What we do know is that the places featured in the book that we've been lucky enough to spend time in, are special and you just know it when you're there, even if sometimes you don't know why. All we can hope for is that the duo put out another book in 2022 with 10 more years of work, and then open a school so it multiplies.