LIFE OF THE PARTY
Socialite Jean Shafiroff shows off her gala-ready Hamptons manse for the first time
BUILDING a dream home can take a long time. But in the Hamptons, where funds flow more freely, progress can be unusually swift. Philanthropist Jean Shafiroff and her husband Martin, managing director of the wealth management and investment banking firm Stifel, recently razed and rebuilt their Southampton retreat in near record time. Today, just over two years after the bulldozers arrived, not a blade of grass on their 2-acre estate is askew. The centerpiece: a 15,000-square-foot mansion with a gambrel roof typical of the area’s grand estates.
“We wanted a home that looked as though it could have been here for 100 years,” says Shafiroff of their nine-bedroom, 14-bathroom retreat for weekends and summers, designed by local Hamptons architect John Laffey. “The town likes you to build in the style of old Southampton. We wanted a house that would be part of the community.”
The Upper East Side couple has vacationed on the same lea along Old Town Pond, just a block from the ocean,
since 1996. Their former flatroofed contemporary home was smaller — about 5,000 square feet, with only two guest rooms. As Shafiroff ’s charitable efforts for causes like animal welfare and local medical institutions began to require a more ambitious style of entertaining, the couple felt it was time for an upgrade. But it wasn’t until Hurricane Sandy ravaged their property in 2012 that they finally got serious about making a change.
“The house was fine,” says Shafiroff, a Page Six fixture whose closet is filled with goodies from Oscar de la Renta, Dolce & Gabbana and Carolina Herrera. “But all the real estate brokers said, ‘You’re living in a teardown.’ After our roof was damaged during Sandy, we finally decided it was time to start thinking about it.”
The nosedive into full-on construction came as a surprise in 2015, Shafiroff recalls.
“One day, my husband came to me with these architectural plans,” she adds. “I was thrilled.”
Saving nothing but the antique marble fireplaces, the couple — who have been married for 36 years and have two daughters — completed their project this February. Antiguan rescue dog Rosita, about 1, got introduced to her new summer home in June.
Now, in the light-filled grand foyer, checked marble floors complement a sweeping curved staircase. Above, a large layer-cake plaster and bronze chandelier by Parisian artist Patrice Dangel hangs from an architectural ceiling piece reproduced from a Stanford White building in Manhattan. An over- size, abstract artwork by Brooklynbased contemporary painter Keltie Ferris hangs on the wall along the stairs, a graceful contrast to traditional wall moldings.
The couple describes their design philosophy as a mix of modern and classic, meant to make their many hundreds of yearly visitors feel comfortable. It’s a style that is most apparent in their generous living room, which is decorated with copies of 1920s Viennese carpets and modern furniture in tribal prints and is flanked on either end with historically significant works by Victorian artist John Godward and Renaissance painter Bernard Van Orley.
Shafiroff recalls traipsing through local marble yards to design the bathrooms in their antique-filled apartment on Park Avenue. But this time around, she trusted Manhattan-based interior designer Brian McCarthy and contractor HF Swanson & Associates to see the couple’s vision through — with a few limitations, like no animal skins per her no-animal-cruelty causes.
McCarthy selected luxurious and playful fabrics by John Rosselli, Pollack and Kravet to cover contemporary and antique seating. He also decorated sculptural side tables with the couple’s ceramics collection. The floors all feature custom hearth-cut rugs, while the walls throughout the sprawling spread sport hand-painted Venetian plaster and wallpaper. Artisans upholstered the downstairs powder room walls in vintage Suzani textiles.
It’s a luxurious scene, but one shrewdly designed for accommodating large numbers of guests. Shafiroff recent- ly hosted a cocktail party benefiting Stony Brook Southampton Hospital for 150 people. The key to philanthropy is not merely writing fat checks, she says, but donating time and resources. So she frequently opens her home to nonprofit supporters and social-scene staples. They may be able to afford a five-figure ticket to a charity event, but might have nowhere to stay in the prohibitively pricey East End, where neighbors include George Soros and comparable homes can cost as much as $20 million. “The weekend in July that I was the honorary chair of Southampton Animal Shelter gala, I hosted a group of friends who bought tickets,” says Shafiroff, who this season alone chaired events including the shelter’s “Unconditional Love Gala,” the American Heart Association’s “Hamptons Heart Ball” and the Ellen Hermanson Breast Center’s “An Evening of Enchantment.” “With my housekeeper, we were 14 people and five dogs.” Shafiroff adds that at times she wishes they had added an additional floor of bedrooms to their threelevel home so that she could pack in 30 to 40 people each weekend.
That hotel-like perspective on entertaining also influenced design choices. All of the well-appointed bedrooms — one of which is coated in spectacular floral wallpaper — have en suite bathrooms and two are laid out as private suites. The showstopping, bulletproof window-encased indoor pool and spa, where everyone can enjoy a dip no matter the weather, features a soaring double-height ceiling.
The Shafiroffs’ furniture is, on the whole, sturdy and the wine glasses are from Pottery Barn. (So as not to embarrass guests in the event of a spilled drink or other faux pas, the couple opted to leave the 18thcentury dining room chairs and the Saint-Louis crystal — from $200 for a single goblet — in the city.)
“We take our guests out for meals,” she says, except for a semi-formal breakfast served daily in the marble-clad kitchen. “We belong to a club, so after drinks we will take them out for spare rib or lobster night. We don’t have a chef because our guests like to go out so they can experience the Hamptons.”
Shafiroff emphasizes that their home is still a work in progress: There is still an outdoor pool to consider building and deck chairs to buy. In places, homey tchotchkes have yet to punctuate barren surfaces. On the lowerlevel amenity floor, near the gym, a pool table and a home theater/ screening room, a large room is empty. Perhaps a conference room for her husband, she ponders aloud. They are still settling in, and are staunchly averse to clutter.
“We wanted warmth without being over the top,” Shafiroff says. “I wanted something that is less formal than our home in New York, something comfortable and unpretentious. I want a happy home.”