Elle Decor | Poonam Khanna
A BOLD HAMPTONS BEACH HOUSE WITH NARY A SHINGLE OR CLAPBOARD IN SIGHT
When Daryl Simon and her husband, Irwin, purchased a rare piece of land in Bridgehampton, New York, for a weekend and summer home, they were clear on one thing: They didn’t want a traditional Hamptons beach house. There would be no homage to the Shingle Style’s steeply peaked rooflines, no Colonial Revival for the 21st century, and no corporate swaths of glass.
Instead, for the 10 acres located between deeded farmland and Sagaponack Pond, the Simons recruited an unusual team: Architecture Plus Information (A+I), known for creating tech offices with a humanist touch, and designer Poonam Khanna, an architect by training whose ELLE DECOR A-List studio, Unionworks, has been quietly running on word-of-mouth commissions since its founding in 2007. Based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Khanna was born in Chandigarh, India; she began her career in the public sector and pivoted to designing luxury interiors for private residences, hospitality, retail brands, and offices. Her collaboration with A+I—and LaGuardia Design Group, who contributed landscaping—resulted in a house as surprising as its team. “Grey Gardens, it ain’t,” says Brad Zizmor, one of A+I’s two cofounders.
