Marc Hundley's New Furniture Collection Has an Appealing Airiness

When artist Marc Hundley was invited to take a booth at the sprawling Frieze New York art fair last summer, he re-created his Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment right down to the art he fantasized was on its walls. “I wanted to make the space comfortable,” he says, “so people would connect.”

The same sentiment prevailed when Hundley set out to design furniture. The artist first built pieces for his friend the creative agent Justinian Kfoury, who had bought the beach house built by the renowned arts patron Morris Golde in 1957 in the remote and fashionable community of Water Island, off Long Island. (Michael Kors has a house next door.) Golde famously hosted creative cohorts there, including playwright Edward Albee, and poets W. H. Auden and Frank O’Hara, who was visiting on the fateful night he was struck by a vehicle on a beach and killed.

Using leftover materials he found under the classic wood house, perched high above the trees with stunning views of the ocean and bay, Hundley made a bench and a daybed for Kfoury. They were so successful that he then moved on to designing a sofa, floor lamp, dining table, chairs, and more out of light oak. Inspired by the idea of being shipwrecked, he says, “I cut the wood into little strips to make it go as far as possible.” Hundley built the handmade, limited-edition pieces with a simple dowel construction and topped off some with oil enamel in colors like blue lagoon and marigold.

Arranged in a room, the furniture has an appealing airiness as light travels through the slender legs; its easy elegance invites a guest to relax. “I like making spaces nice,” says Hundley. “I want people to feel welcome. I want them to stay.”