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As soon as she met her neighbors, Alyse Borkan knew she had bought the right East Hampton home. While landscaping one day, they told her and her partner, Dave, about the family who used to live in the modern house, specifically the architect father who had built it in 1986. Whenever they needed help, the neighbors recalled, he’d be the first to volunteer. And so Borkan’s new friends promised to do the same for them. “I had lost my dad the year before, so hearing these stories about this dad who was always there for his neighbors and had built this incredibly warm home for his family, it struck a chord with me,” she says. “I felt a lot of good energy from the home.”
It would be a while before Borkan was really able to enjoy the good vibes. Right after the couple closed in April 2022, they hit the ground running with renovations, and by September they had tenants. Borkan had no problem with the arrangement. In fact, she thought at the time that renovating and operating rentals was going to be her next job. After heading up marketing for buzzy 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 sphere. He was on a mission to make wine refrigerators less boxy and more furniture-like, and Borkan knew how to help: In fall 2023, the Rocco Super Smart Fridge was born.
The chic beverage cooler, which has sold out three times in three months, can keep drinks at two different temperatures, hold 88 cans (or 27 bottles), and be controlled—down to the interior camera—through an app. It even comes in a cheerful yellow and dusty shade of pink, the latter designed to be reminiscent of nearby Wölffer Estate’s rosé. Having built a career putting a fresh spin on basic products (mattresses, razors, refrigerators), it’s easy to see why Borkan fell in love with renovating. “I chose this home because of how unrenovated it was,” she explains, “because it allowed me to pull from the original intention of the design but make it my own.”
After seeing how Tangible Space, the architecture firm helmed by Michael Yarinsky and Kelley Perumbet, renovated the Billie office, Borkan knew she wanted to bring them in on her project. On the main level, they simply stripped the shiny finish off the terracotta floor tile to give it a modern, matte look. Then in honor of the past owner, she did something very ’80s: She had the drywall between the dining and living rooms replaced with glass blocks. “It lets more light through and makes it feel less closed off,” she says.
Even bits of the rooms they gutted and redesigned are based on elements of the original house. The previous kitchen had white cabinets with curved handles, so Borkan settled on a similar scheme. The bathrooms were unfortunate shades of purple and pink, but she loved how the walls were clad in 4×4 tiles. Borkan took cues from the look but used smaller-scale squares in earthy tones like yellow, brown, and cream. Because she was juggling Rocco’s launch around the same time, work naturally found its way into the reno. After landing on a reeded glass door for the smart fridge (it helps refract light for energy efficiency), she chose fluted partitions for the showers.
Yarinsky and Perumbeti, together with carpentry studio Thirdkind, crafted the kitchen table and bench, the headboard in the primary bedroom, the formal dining set, and the staircase banister. They even mocked up the designs for the living room bookshelves, which Borkan swiftly stocked with titles from her favorite used bookstore on Shelter Island, Black Cat Books. “I go every other week; I’m obsessed,” she says.
On a rainy summer day, she’ll park herself on the purchase she prizes most: the Kelston sofa from Design Within Reach. She had long admired the piece’s pop-up headrests that allow it to transition into what she calls “movie theater mode. It’s really the type of sofa you can sit all day in,” she says. Brand-new, the sectional retails for a cool $15,000, so she set alerts on secondhand furniture site Kaiyo and waited for a used one to surface. “It was $2,500 and it looked disgusting. I sent it right to an upholster,” she adds. While a bit of a nuisance, it meant she could get her dream couch for a quarter of the price.
Borkan’s personal Rocco fridge is tucked between the dining and living rooms, so guests hanging out in either space can easily access it. The top shelves are stocked with seltzers and sodas—the things that get consumed the most, especially by Borkan, who doesn’t drink alcohol. “It’s not just for wine, it’s for really anything that you drink,” she says. Whether a friend is sipping sparkling water or something vodka based, there’s often a fruity homemade shrub for them to work with. It’s the neighborly thing to do.
