When she met her neighbors, Alyse Borkan knew immediately that she had bought the right house in East Hampton. One day, while they were landscaping, they told her and her partner, Dave, about the family that had previously lived in the modern house, especially the father, an architect who had built it in 1986. Whenever they needed help, neighbors recalled, he was the first to volunteer. And so Borkan’s new friends promised to do the same for her. “I had lost my father the year before, and when I heard these stories about this father who was always there for his neighbors and had built this incredibly warm house for his family, it really touched me,” she says. “I felt a lot of positive energy coming from that house.”
It would be a while before Borkan could really enjoy the good vibes. Right after the couple closed shop in April 2022, they started renovating, and by September they had tenants. Borkan had no problem with the arrangement. In fact, at the time, she thought renovating and managing rental properties would be her next job. After leading marketing for hot brands like Our Place, Casper, and Billie, she was hungry for the next thing. But before she could build an Airbnb empire, she met Sam Naparstek through the startup world. He was on a mission to make wine fridges less boxy and more furniture-like, and Borkan knew how to help: In fall 2023, the Rocco Super Smart Fridge was born.
The chic drinks cooler, which sold out three times in three months, can keep drinks at two different temperatures, holds 88 cans (or 27 bottles), and is controlled via an app – right down to the interior camera. It even comes in a cheery yellow and a dusty pink, the latter meant to evoke the rosé from the nearby Wölffer Estate. Having built a career giving simple products (mattresses, razors, refrigerators) a new coat of paint, it’s easy to see why Borkan fell in love with renovating. “I chose this house because it’s so beautiful, U.N“It was renovated,” she explains, “because that allowed me to continue with the original intent of the design while also making it my own.”
After seeing Tangible Space, the architecture firm run by Michael Yarinsky and Kelley Perumbet, renovate the Billie office, Borkan knew she wanted to include them in her project. On the ground floor, they simply removed the glossy finish of the terra-cotta floor tiles to give them a modern, matte look. Then, in honor of the previous owner, she did something very ’80s: She had the drywall between the dining and living rooms replaced with glass blocks. “That lets more light through and makes it feel less enclosed,” she says.
Even parts of the rooms they gutted and redesigned are based on elements of the original home. The previous kitchen had white cabinets with curved handles, so Borkan opted for a similar scheme. The bathrooms were unfortunate shades of purple and pink, but she liked how the walls were clad in 4×4 tiles. Borkan took a cue from the look but used smaller squares in earthy tones like yellow, brown, and cream. Since she was juggling the launch of Rocco around the same time, work naturally found its way into the renovation. After settling on a fluted glass door for the smart fridge (it helps refract light, thus achieving energy efficiency), she opted for fluted dividers for the showers.
Yarinsky and Perumbeti, along with cabinetry studio Thirdkind, crafted the kitchen table and bench, the master bedroom headboard, the formal dining room set and the stair railing. They even drew up designs for the living room bookshelves, which Borkan quickly stocked with books from her favorite Shelter Island used bookstore, Black Cat Books. “I go there every other week; I’m obsessed,” she says.
On a rainy summer day, she sets out to make the purchase she cherishes most: the Kelston sofa from Design Within Reach. She’s long admired the piece’s fold-out headrests, which allow it to be put into what she calls “cinema mode. It really is the kind of sofa you can sit on all day,” she says. Brand new, the sofa costs a whopping $15,000, so she set up alerts on used furniture website Kaiyo and waited for a used one to pop up. “It was $2,500 and looked disgusting. I immediately sent it to an upholsterer,” she adds. While that was a bit of a bummer, it meant she could get her dream sofa for a quarter of the price.
Borkan’s personal Rocco fridge is tucked between the dining and living rooms, so guests staying in either room can easily access it. The top shelves are filled with sparkling water and sodas—the things most consumed, especially by Borkan, who doesn’t drink alcohol. “It’s not just for wine, but really anything you drink,” she says. Whether a friend drinks sparkling water or something vodka-based, there’s often a fruity, homemade shrub to work with. It’s a neighborly gesture.
