WHEN BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER

In a town where massive estates sit squarely behind rows of tall privet and gates, I find it refreshing and quite clever to see a couple bucking the "bigger is better" trend and creating a chic and beautiful Hampton beach side oasis out of just a few carefully designed rooms.

Driftwood on the Ocean, a modest beach-front bungalow co-op was built in 1951 and converted to 750 square foot apartments in 1980. Shlomo and Lilian Bakhask were "anti-big houses" and were looking for an unpretentious beach-front home when they bought their apartment in 1999. The standard motel room set up consisted of a single open space with two beds, a sleeper sofa, a kitchenette and bathroom-definitely not your summer mansion!  But as you can see from the photos, Lilian, a furniture designer and fledgling interior designer, cleverly turned the small space into a sleek, chic summer retreat. A few years ago, they purchased the two adjoining units to make room for their daughter and reconstructed the 1,500 square foot space into a 2 bedroom apartment.  Ms. Bakhask nicknamed the project the Sun Factory and set out to fill the space with a bright, sunny 50's  look. I think the space is beach bungalow perfection!
 

Photos by Eric Striffler New York Times