Neal Beckstedt Lovingly Restores His 1890 Sag Harbor Home
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In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, the eminent 19th-century polymath John Ruskin observed, “The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy…which we feel in walls that have long been washed by passing waves of humanity.” Ruskin, of course, was not referring to anything as pedestrian as a modest worker’s cottage in an erstwhile whaling and shipping port—he was ruminating on ancient temples, Renaissance cathedrals, and fabulous European palaces. But his reverence for the beauty of patina and memory and the soulfulness of timeworn buildings is apt here nevertheless.
AD100 designer Neal Beckstedt acquired his circa 1890 home in the Hamptons village of Sag Harbor in 2014 and lived in the house for six years before undertaking a gut renovation. The humble structure—which he shares with his husband, Paulo Braga—was built as housing for workers at the nearby Bulova Watchcase Factory, a relic of American industry that was converted into luxury residences roughly a decade ago. “The house had a classic gingerbread shape, the kind of place a child draws when they draw a house. I fell in love with the simplicity,” Beckstedt recalls. “It was built for a working-class family, and I wanted to celebrate that. I grew up on a farm in rural Ohio, and I spent my childhood playing in a barn, so I was trying to recapture that feeling.”
Beckstedt’s renovation journey was guided by the virtue of subtlety—a longing for natural, unaffected beauty, attuned to the history of the house and the community where it stands. “I dove deep into research with the goal of bringing the house back to its 1890s roots as much as possible,” the designer notes, acknowledging the need to make discreet updates. A large part of that mission involved freeing the structure from decades of interventions that obscured the home’s abundant charms. He restored the original windows, stripped the paint from the cedar siding, added hand-cut cedar shakes to the roof, and exposed the rugged brick chimney and antique ceiling beams. He also liberated the original wide-plank pine floors from their straitjacket of plastic laminate. The only major change to the architectural shell was an inconspicuous addition for a new primary bedroom suite.
As patina is the key to selling any historical fantasy, Beckstedt endeavored to make the building materials he employed more sympathetic to the existing architecture. New pine wall panels and cabinetry, for instance, were fumed with ammonia, and the beadboard inserts placed between the ceiling beams were painted with a distressed finish. The marble slab flooring laid in the breakfast room was brushed and acid-washed, and the front door was fitted with textured antique glass. Beckstedt even left his vintage potbelly stove outside to weather in the elements before installing it on an irregular bluestone slab for an extra dash of authenticity.
Despite the care he lavished on period-appropriate finishes and materials, Beckstedt rejected the notion of strict historical orthodoxy. “I didn’t want the experience to feel like you were walking into a house museum,” the designer says, describing his polyglot decor of furnishings and artworks spanning multiple centuries, styles, and places of origin. The mix includes signature designs by 20th-century French luminaries Jacques Adnet, Charlotte Perriand, and Serge Mouille; a range of Swedish and American antiques; and vintage Japanese and Persian textiles. Still, the overall aesthetic and mood remain consistently subdued and serene, eschewing jarring juxtapositions.
“This project was a catalyst for me to hone my approach and sensibility,” says Beckstedt, who is currently preparing to open his own furniture gallery in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood this spring—a project spearheaded by his husband. “When you design something for yourself, you have to ask ‘Who am I, what is my voice?’ ” Apparently, that voice is a mellifluous whisper from the past accompanied by a stentorian embrace of the present.
Neal Beckstedt’s Sag Harbour home appears in AD’s May issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
1/15A custom gate of tree limbs leads from the side yard to the rear garden. Beckstedt stripped away layers of paint and left the original cedar siding raw.
2/15Guarded by a Cherry tree more than a century old, the residence was built in the 1890s as worker housing for the Bulova Watchcase Factory.
3/15The mélange of furnishings in the living room includes an Erik Ole Jørgensen sofa, a pair of Jean-Michel Frank armchairs covered in Pierre Frey linen, a Charlotte Perriand stool, 1960s Italian tree-branch armchairs, a side table and cerused screens by Jacques Adnet, and a Serge Mouille floor lamp. A painting by Mark Saltz hangs to the left.
4/15Living room seating includes an Erik Ole Jørgensen sofa and a pair of Jean-Michel Frank armchairs covered in Pierre Frey linen.
5/15The kitchen has a black AGA stove backed by a wall of reclaimed yellow cement tiles.
6/15Dordogne chairs by Charlotte Perriand pull up to an 18th-century Swedish Trestle table beneath a milk glass pendant from Laurin Copen Antiques in the dining room.
7/15The breakfast room is outfitted with a 19th-century French café table paired with a 1930s French rattan settee and an antique American Windsor chair.
Art: Christopher Le Brun © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London8/15The sitting area of the primary bedroom has a Rick Owens side table, a Pierre Jeanneret desk and chair from Chandigarh, and a painting by Christopher Le Brun through Friedman Benda.
9/15A custom burl-wood bed is joined by a Rick Owens side table, an antique wood-frame lounge chair, and a French burl-wood dresser in the primary bedroom.
10/15A guest bedroom is anchored by a custom mahogany four-poster bed with a collection of 19th-century framed French botanicals above.
Art: Jim Lee/Nicelle Beauchene Gallery11/15Beckstedt used whitewashed oak shutters as window treatments in the guest bedroom.
12/15A 19th-century wood mixing bowl, supported on a tree root excavated during construction, was repurposed as a sink in the guest bath.
13/15In the primary bath, a Louis XVI mirror hangs above an antique hand-hammered copper alloy tub resting on a floor of Portuguese Lilly marble.
14/15A vintage French metal café table and chairs occupy the upper terrace off the kitchen.
15/15An outcropping of Smokebush hovers in front of a 15-foot-square pool in the tiered garden. Landscape design by Neal Beckstedt Studio.
