Long Island Retreat

Though Albert Sebag’s waterfront residence in Atlantic Beach, New York, is just a 40-minute drive from the city, the home “truly feels like you have escaped to New England,” says AD100 designer Neal Beckstedt, who completed the property’s full ground-up design, as well as its exteriors, over the course of many years.

This two-story summer home is one of several projects on which Beckstedt, the founder of Manhattan-based Neal Beckstedt Studio, and Sebag, the founder and CEO of Guidepoint Global LLC, have worked together; Beckstedt has also designed or is in the process of wrapping up four additional spaces. These include Sebag’s 38,000-square-foot offices in Manhattan, his West Village home, a mountaintop residence in Cold Spring, New York, and a former home on the Upper East Side. “Neal really understands what I’m looking for, which sometimes isn’t always clear to me,” Sebag says. “I’ve learned over the years to trust that he will come up with something incredible, and this approach has never failed.”

The Atlantic Beach home is located on a very rectangular lot, but the existing structure wasn’t well positioned to fully enjoy the surrounding water views, Beckstedt explains, and he therefore executed a complete teardown. “It was about reconceiving everything about this property and how to make it into an amazing vacation house and beach house,” the designer says. “The issue with these square homes in tight lots is they cut the property in half, whereby you have a home on one side and a yard on the side,” Sebag says. “I wanted a house with the yard running across the property and a pool on the side, because I love a grassy backyard and the water running parallel to it.”

Sebag also wanted every room to be purposeful and feel connected to the bayfront. “I was totally on board, even though it was so abstract compared to the neighborhood homes,” the homeowner says of the structure, which he describes as a “contemporary looking rectangular barn with large windows.” When it was completed, he adds, “People in the neighborhood were blown away by the house, as it really stood out.”

In designing the interior of the home, “I wanted it to have a little edge,” Beckstedt says, noting that many modern homes are devoid of personality. “I wanted this to have some zing.” Sebag enjoys boating and fishing, and Beckstedt wanted to weave those motifs into the house too, in order to design “a Nantucket house, but with a sleek, masculine, modern take on it.” The ebonized and brushed knotty cedar walls in the home create an effect that is similar in resemblance to the shou sugi ban technique.

Despite constructing the home from scratch, the designer wanted to incorporate pieces with patina all throughout the home, including a rustic country English table he placed in the dining area, which dates back to the 1820s. “There’s no fussiness to it,” Beckstedt says of the 1stDibs piece. “There’s no issue or worry when you have guests.” Given that the family room features pops of black, Beckstedt wanted to bring that hue into the kitchen too. “Usually you don’t have such dark areas, especially in a kitchen,” he says. “I wanted to explore that.”

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Beckstedt particularly wanted to take a “quiet” approach to the bedroom. “In my brain, bedrooms should be more zen,” he says. In contrast, Beckstedt went bold when selecting art for the home. “The interior of the house is very minimal, which allows one to really focus on the views,” Sebag says. “There was an opportunity to have some unique art pieces that didn’t compete with the views and maintained the minimal feel, yet allows you to have these really beautiful moments throughout the house.” In the living room, Alex Katz’s Elizabeth (2013) is positioned over the fireplace. “That’s the direction everyone wants to stare,” the homeowner adds. Meanwhile, Carol Bove’s Sinister Forces (2021) hangs to its right. “It has these angles and turns and movement in the piece, which also parallels the movement of water,” Sebag says of the sculpture, which is made from stainless steel and urethane paint.

In the basement lounge, an untitled piece by Andre Butzer packs a punch above the blue denim fabric sofa. In the home office, Beckstedt wanted to create a solid grid of books, which he did on one of the walls. Vintage nautical maps of Long Island hang behind Sebag’s desk. “I love how they create a lot of personality in that room,” Beckstedt says. “It’s an amazing place to work or read a book,” Sebag says of the space. “The views from this room are unparalleled.” Mission accomplished, it seems.