Bridge For Design April 2015 Bridge For Design April 2015 | Page 73

W

e’d all like to think we design our homes for
ourselves. But if hooked up to a lie detector,
plenty of us would have to confess: Yes, we
also care if they look nice to others.
Who doesn’t?
Robert Duffy, for one. The longtime business partner of
fashion designer Marc Jacobs, Duffy knows a thing or two
about style, and you’d expect his getaway in Provincetown,
Massachusetts, to be a major design statement, either a
gleaming-white modernist masterpiece or some historic Cape
Cod-to-the-rafters replica filled with glass fishing buoys and
old oars. The fact that he has been coming to Provincetown
since he was a teenager and even remembers this house
during its incarnation as a swinging 1960s pad only increases
expectations.

But the Manhattan-based Duffy wanted an idiosyncratic retreat,
not a prescripted fantasy. So he did that rare thing in the design world:
With the help of architect Stephan Jaklitsch and designer Richard
McGeehan, he simply built a great space for himself and all the things
he loves. ‘I’m a collector,’ he says. ‘My architect likes it when things are
minimal, but I’m more comfortable in a room that has the things I love
in it. Basically, what I more or less ended up saying was, “This is my
stuff, let’s work with it.” Fortunately, McGeehan and Jaklitsch were up
for the challenge. ‘It’s very personal and very passionate,’ McGeehan
says. ‘Few people have the confidence to love what they love.’
LEFT: The beach-level sitting area features a 1930s Indian armchair and a sofa
covered in Holly Hunt leather; the mahogany centre table is Art Deco, the painting
is by Tracey Sanford Anderson, the statue is an 18th century Vietnamese grave marker
ABOVE: Robert Duffy CEO of Marc Jacobs at his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts

Bridge for Design Spring 2015

73