East Hampton Residence minimalist residence located in East Hampton, New York designed by Helena Clunies-Ross. The project began with an unusual directive – to create a wellness sanctuary for someone who spends their professional life dressing the world’s most photographed women. Fashion designer Natalie De Banco, whose label Bronx and Banco has clothed Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Miley Cyrus, needed her home to function as the inverse of her public-facing work: a space of profound stillness rather than spectacle, restoration rather than performance. This fundamental tension – between the kinetic energy of fashion and the meditative qualities of wellness architecture – drives every material choice and spatial gesture in the residence.
Helena Clunies-Ross, drawing from her tenure as Design Director at Anouska Hempel and her fine art training, developed what she terms a Calma philosophy – an approach that treats light, shadow, and natural materials as emotional rather than purely visual elements. The 3,500-square-foot extension operates through this lens, treating architecture as a choreographed experience of sensory recalibration. A preserved cherry tree, now framed by floor-to-ceiling glass, establishes the organizing principle: the building wraps around nature rather than displacing it, creating a porous boundary between interior retreat and exterior vitality.
The material palette reads as a deliberate counterpoint to the high-gloss finishes of luxury retail environments. Stone, timber, and linen create what might be called a haptic language – surfaces invite touch and register change across time and season. Custom slatted timber screens modulate light quality throughout the day, transforming the hard sun into diffused, spa-like luminosity. These screens function architecturally as both privacy mechanisms and visual guides, directing sight lines toward moments of intentional focus: a meditation nook, a sculptural bathing area, integrated greenery that blurs the threshold between room and garden.
Bespoke elements throughout the home demonstrate how craft detail can amplify conceptual clarity. A kitchen pendant designed by Clunies-Ross operates as a focal sculpture, while reclaimed timber in the wellness zones carries visible grain and weathering – material history made legible. The basement speakeasy bar introduces a controlled moment of darkness and enclosure, offering psychological contrast to the light-filled upper levels. This tonal shift acknowledges that restoration requires both openness and retreat, exposure and protection.
