I first noticed 55 Wickatuck Drive in Sag Harbor because the gorgeously redesigned home had a real point of view—calm, edited, and quietly specific. That is, it felt like a home, not a project. The styling is intentional without feeling staged: elevated finishes, relaxed coastal ease, a level of cohesion that shows someone cared about the home’s full experience, not just the high-impact moments.
Even after the home sold, something about the property stayed with me. Luckily for me, the real estate agent who sold the property, Sarah Doud, picks up her phone when I call (to be fair, she would probably answer your call, too). She told me the renovation and interiors were designed by STUDIOBKM and Brian K. Mims, a studio approach centered on luxury that simplifies living rather than complicating it. The spaces feel restorative, considered, and durable enough to handle real life in the Hamptons: sandy feet, wet dogs, last-minute guests, all of it.
Not surprisingly, Brian is a Pisces. Water signs always have real creative energy (note: I am a Pisces).
Restraint Requires Confidence
When a home feels “quiet,” it’s tempting to assume the designer simply dialed everything down. But the quiet I felt at 55 Wickatuck was precision – not absence. The kind of confidence that comes from knowing what to leave out as much as what to include.
“With my fashion background, so much of my history is rooted in editing, restraint, and materiality. It’s a discipline, paring things back until what remains feels inevitable, and it naturally leans toward a quiet, neutral world with depth rather than noise.”
In the Hamptons, where the visual noise can skew loud (and sometimes, a little try-hard), there’s something refreshing about a point of view that doesn’t need to announce itself. Brian’s version of luxury lives in the in-between moments: the way light settles on a surface, the way the palette holds steady throughout the day, the way rooms connect without competing.
Timeless Luxury is Streamlined, Simple
A truly edited home is layered in a way you notice slowly – minimal is miles away from sterile. The best spaces don’t perform for you on day one; they unfold. That’s the difference between “minimal” as a trend and restraint as a practice.
“Good editing is a discovery over time. I worked for over a decade at Calvin Klein, and that sensibility still shapes how I think: something can read simple at first glance, but over time, it should continue to reveal something special. I’m not interested in chasing trends; I’m thinking about the materiality of a home—how it ages, how it feels, and what it communicates ten years from now.”
That last line is what I keep coming back to. In the Hamptons, especially, the lifestyle starts with the home: Summer’s energy. Winter hush. The swing seasons that make you fall in love with the East End all over again. A home should be able to hold all of that without feeling like it’s chasing the next “moment.”
Quiet Luxury is Often Misunderstood
In the Hamptons, “quiet luxury” gets tossed around like a Birkin of questionable origin: is it really quiet luxury, or is it just blank? The design ethos is often misunderstood as a lack of effort. In reality, it’s effort with discipline.
What do you think most people get wrong about ‘quiet luxury’? “That it lacks detail. Quiet luxury isn’t the absence of design—it’s the presence of intention. The details are there; they’re just integrated, refined, and meant to be felt as much as seen.”
That’s the paradox: the quietest homes are frequently the most worked-on. They don’t show off, but they do show up. Everywhere you touch, everywhere you sit, everywhere your eye wanders without even realizing it.
The Simple Upgrade that Changes Everything
There’s always a temptation to think “considered” means expensive objects, rare stone, square-foot-maxxing, the big flex. But the most immediate shift in a home—what is felt before it is defined—can be something far simpler, and far more precise.
“From an interior perspective, one of the simplest ways to elevate a space is by choosing the right color. Color sets the emotional temperature of a home: its atmosphere, softness, cohesion. In coastal light that shifts all day, the right tone can make everything feel calmer, more considered, and quietly elevated.”
If color is a simple way to elevate the design of your Hamptons home, then light is the most underrated design decision.
“Often, light is overlooked and not considered fully. You can tell when a designer has been involved in the pre-construction phase, because the experience is completely different—how daylight moves through the rooms, where you need softness, where you want clarity, what the space feels like at night. You can walk into two similar homes and have two entirely different emotional responses.”
If you’ve ever walked into two seemingly similar houses and felt completely different inside them, you already know what Brian means here. Of course, floorplan and bones matter, but so does the invisible choreography: how the light lands, how it moves, what it does at 4 p.m. in August versus 7 a.m. in February.
Trend-Proofing with Timeless Aesthetic
The Hamptons can be trend-friendly…sometimes too friendly. But the homes that stick with you aren’t the ones that mastered the current aesthetic; they’re the ones that refuse to age at all. Neither historic nor en trend. STUDIOBKM’s focus is on the timeless.
“I’m not the biggest on focusing on what’s en trend. When I think about a home, I’m not approaching it for the next twelve months; I’m thinking about the next twelve years. If it’s truly well considered, it should feel relevant long after the moment passes.”
STUDIOBKM’s commitment to timelessness is an exercise in nuance that is hard to get right, because it requires the discipline to resist the obvious. It’s the design equivalent of someone who doesn’t need to name-drop.
“My skillset lies in creating homes and spaces that speak to a timeless, understated luxury. I’m different in my approach. I’m focused on depth, proportion, and the way materials live over time, and that adds originality without feeling like it’s trying too hard.”
That originality is subtle, but reveals itself over time: in the consistency, the calm, the material choices that feel good to live with, not just photograph.
Principled Design in Practice
Before tile, paint, furniture (even before the Pinterest boards get started), the real starting point is lifestyle. Not aspirational lifestyle. Actual lifestyle: Do you host? Do you hide? Do you need a home that resets your nervous system after a week in the city?
“I always like to understand the feeling first: how clients want the home to function and what they want it to give them day to day. The home as a lifestyle: is it for entertaining, a calming retreat, a space for play? I give my clients a 75-question form to gauge their baseline before we even start a mood board, so the design is grounded in how they actually live.”
The home’s “feeling” is the throughline in Brian’s work. It’s why his spaces feel lived in, not decorated. That effort is deeply telling: consideration is a practice. The luxury is in the attention.
Luxury as Consideration, Not Scale
Living in the Hamptons, you get used to the way “luxury” is often measured—by scale, by spectacle, by how much can be squeezed into a listing description. Brian’s approach is the opposite, and arguably more aligned with the essence of the Hamptons lifestyle.
“Luxury doesn’t mean scale; it speaks to thoughtfulness. It’s about creating a sensory experience—light, materials, texture, even the way sound travels through a space. When all those elements are considered together, the entire experience is elevated. You don’t need 5,000+ square feet to have luxury.”
This is the version of luxury I find most refreshing: luxury as ease. Luxury as calm. Luxury as a home that holds you, rather than one that performs.
Honoring the Hamptons Home
Most notable to me is Brian’s work, intentionally in kind with the surroundings—an integrity that’s often overlooked in the race to renovate. In 55 Wickatuck, STUDIOBKM’s restoration protected the home’s origin, not overpowering it.
“55 Wickatuck allowed the home to stay true to its origin as a mid-century cottage, while reimagining it as a serene coastal retreat. It’s about respecting the integrity of what was there—and refining it so it feels fresh, restorative, and right for the way people live here.”
Preserving character matters in the Hamptons. Not just because it looks right, but because it is respectful—to the landscape, to the neighborhood, to the idea that not every house has to dominate the conversation.
Like at 55 Wickatuck, STUDIOBKM’s upcoming Sag Harbor project leans into something equally Hamptons: the privilege of the horizon without the theatrics. There’s a particular kind of luxury in letting the landscape do the talking.
STUDIOBKM’s upcoming project in Sag Harbor on Noyack Road shares a throughline with 55 Wickatuck. “It has the most amazing, undisturbed waterfront views—truly special. You get sunsets and this natural atmosphere that feels almost hidden; from the street, you’d never guess the scope of the water beyond. Nearly 80% of the rooms have waterviews, and the design is about honoring that sense of discovery rather than competing with it.”
Not bigger. Not more. But, decidedly better because the setting is honored, and the experience is considered from the start.
At the end of the day, what I admire most is that STUDIOBKM designs for how people actually live here: as retreats, as gathering places, as seasonal resets. But he doesn’t start with a punch list. He starts with a mood.
And that, in the Hamptons, is the real je ne sais quoi: not louder, not bigger—just more considered.
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