A Sag Harbor Gallerist Brightens Her Apartment

On the second and top floor of a nondescript building on Washington Street in downtown Sag Harbor is a lovely and light-filled, loft-like apartment. “People are always surprised when they walk in,” said Laura Grenning, who owns the tiny building, which also houses her gallery on the first floor. Indeed, with most of the former whaling village’s buildings being cramped and dark, the bright space with its firmament of skylights is a delightfully welcoming aerie.

With a 1928 provenance, the building is actually one of the newest commercial structures in town, having burned down and been rebuilt in 1928. Ms. Grenning bought the building in 2007 after selling a large residential property on Shelter Island. Sandwiched between Ruby Beets and Blooming Shells, and across the street from Watchcase, it was the ideal spot in which to show art and raise her young daughter, Katie, now 14.

“You can’t beat the commute,” Ms. Grenning said. “Seventeen steps.”

Ms. Grenning executed a basic renovation at the time she purchased it, then used the upstairs to hold art classes and show sculpture. Among the artists who taught was Angel Ramiro Sanchez, a Venezuelan landscape painter who now lives in Florence, Italy, and, during summers, Sag Harbor. He is one of the several artists in Ms. Grenning’s stable who spend summers in the burgh. Last spring the gallerist embarked on another, more thorough renovation. She triple-bleached the honey-hued floorboards and applied a whitewash on top for a bottle-blond effect. Because of its proximity to the beach, she “wanted a driftwood-y feeling.”

Her challenge was that there are no right angles between walls, the building having been built to adhere to the sidewalk and back lot. She spent “a fair amount of money” building a right angle into the back wall of the kitchen, proclaiming that “for the eye it’s better.”

She brought in decorator Kristen Quadland, whose company, Emma Scott NYC, is based in Sag Harbor despite its name. Ms. Quadland, a friend of Ms. Grenning, had impressed the gallerist when she designed Ms. Grenning’s 1960s-themed birthday party this past winter. “Laura liked that I could pull it together last minute,” said Ms. Quadland.

Ms. Grenning admits that she was resistant to certain recommendations from Ms. Quadland. “She was the one who kept going with making it big and open,” said Ms. Grenning.

“It was hard to get her to envision all white walls,” said Ms. Quadland, who felt that bright white would open the space. Ms. Grenning was attached to her gray walls, and she also resisted allowing the decorator to remove the wall separating the kitchen and living room. “I held her hand the whole way,” Ms. Quadland said. “Ultimately she was very happy.”

Ms. Grenning recalls that she also resisted Ms. Quadland’s recommendation to put the dining table next to the open stair rail. Ms. Grenning, who had wanted the table in the middle of the room, now sees that Ms. Quadland’s instincts were spot on. A consummate hostess, Ms. Grenning often holds dinners for up to 20 guests after exhibit openings.

The decorator sourced items with curved aspects—an orb chandelier and a round-back chair—in order to break up the angularity of the dwelling’s structure.

The long living room, which contains an open kitchen, displays some of Ms. Grenning’s most precious paintings, including “Florence, Shade” by Ben Fenske, whom she called “one of my top painters.” Mr. Fenske spends a few months a year in Sag Harbor, but also lives in Tuscany and Maine. “We sell a lot of his Maine paintings,” Ms. Grenning said of the artist, whose brushwork she admires.

Ms. Grenning has an eye that is singular in the world of South Fork art, showing works that flirt with realism, though she believes that even a classical painter needs to be aware of the “abstract concept” behind their work. “I’m very impatient when I view art. I’m only interested in incredibly well-done paintings,” she said, stressing that it doesn’t have to be entirely about craft.

“I look for body mind and soul … what’s motivating you to make the painting. It’s about composing something with depth and conception behind it.” Her painters are classically trained, and chosen for their ability to “capture the beauty and balance I experience in nature.”

Ms. Grenning began collecting art when she was 24 and working as a stock analyst living in Hong Kong covering South East Asian locales including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines. She visited Vietnam “when it opened in the early ‘90s” and found that its artists were still dominated by midcentury abstract French influences. She bought some that were graphically sexual in nature, but are now in storage.

There is a maritime feel to her daughter’s bedroom where the top of two bunk beds with built-in drawers is accessible by a rope ladder. “A guy at Ace Hardware knew how to tie all the knots,” Ms. Grenning said. The aqua fabric of the mattresses—“to keep the feeling watery”—was made by Loving Touches, an East Hampton decorating shop, then filled with foam and feathers for a sleep worthy of a yacht.

The furniture on the spacious back deck is a mixed bag of sources and styles that add up to a chic melange: folding chairs from a church sale; a coffee table base made from a “model stand” fashioned by Mr. Fenske for Ms. Grenning to stand on when he painted her portrait; a case that she had shipped from Indonesia, an outdoor sofa from West Elm and a clutch of shell wind chimes, which she got at the shell shop next door.

Ms. Grenning’s bedroom can best be described as Bohemian romantic, what with the Charles Rogers iron bed that sits at an odd angle (remember the lack of right angles), a poppy-print rug, purchased at the West Elm at Tanger Outlet, a mirrored dresser from Pottery Barn and matching robin’s egg blue nightstands from Ikea. Together, the pieces make such a stylish statement that you would never figure them as hailing from big box stores.

That ability to make something out of seemingly nothing correlates to Ms. Grenning’s approach to art. “It’s all in the editing,” she said, “finding something where most people see nothing.” She sees no fewer than 400 paintings a week, she said—and from those she whittles down what she will show to 20.

“It’s about leaving behind what you don’t need,” Ms. Grenning said.