The Genius Behind the Leather: Peter Marino Pours Life's Work Into Foundation, Tapped for Future Southampton Garden

In the modern era, laying claim to the title of “multi-hyphenate” has become the ultimate flex — think “writer-producer-director,” “singer-songwriter-dancer,” “actor-activist-CEO.”

But within the term lives an underlying tension that one person cannot possibly excel at multiple disciplines or pursuits — that, perhaps, they’ve collected many titles but are master of none.

Peter Marino rejects that idea.

A multi-hyphenate long before the term existed, Marino — architect, artist, gardener, art collector, and more — lights up when the topic of what it means arises in conversation.

“My friend Julian Schnabel, once he started making movies, people said, ‘Oh, he’s really not an artist anymore,’ and I said, ‘What? Have you seen his films? They’re artistic and beautiful, and his paintings are as good as ever. What in God’s name?’” Marino said animatedly during an interview in July at his Southampton home.

“I think society wants to categorize people, so people are responding to society’s blinders,” he continued.

After a brief pause, a wry, mischievous smile crossed his face. “But I’m not big for responding to the norms of society,” he said, punctuating the thought with a hearty laugh.

The self-assessment is spot on.

Everything about the 74-year-old dynamo — a man whose longtime friends and colleagues refer to, without hesitation, as a “genius” — defies easy categorization or by-the-book definition.

“He’s like his gardens,” said his niece, Catherine Philbin, who manages front-end operations for the Peter Marino Foundation and also helps with publications in his office. She was seated across from Marino on his back veranda, overlooking his expansive property and award-winning landscape. “Lots of layers and lots of depth.”

Southampton Village could soon have a taste of Marino’s signature landscape design to call its own — a four-season community garden that sits at the center of a proposed expansion of Agawam Park along Pond Lane, which the architect, who has been working pro bono, presented to the public for the first time on Tuesday at a Southampton Village Board work session.

There, and across Southampton, Marino is instantly recognizable. He became one of the village’s most famous and visible residents in recent years, after opening the Peter Marino Art Foundation on Jobs Lane, in the historic building that was formerly home to the Rogers Memorial Library. The foundation includes more than 200 works of art from his vast and varied collection, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography and ceramics from 3500 BC to the present day.

To say that taking over that building and creating the foundation was a labor of love would be an understatement. Marino not only invested millions of dollars to purchase and renovate the over 8,000-square-foot space — originally built by architect Robert Henderson Robertson in 1895, with an addition by architect Grosvenor Atterbury in 1916, commissioned by Samuel L. Parrish — but he also sunk even more money, time and energy into the surrounding outdoor space.

And then, of course, there is the collection itself: an eclectic blend of world-famous names and pieces, with 16th century Old Master paintings by Luca Giordano and a 17th century bronze sculpture by Ferdinando Tacca ordered by Louis XIV living alongside paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cy Twombly.

Much like the art he collects, Marino is a visual marvel himself, with his trademark style of dressing in all black — mainly in leather — with combat boots and an ornate, chunky eagle-themed ring of his own design on his left hand.

His personal style is a nod to his days as an avid motorcyclist; in years past, he’s driven from Long Island to his second home in Aspen, Colorado.

As the principal of Peter Marino Architect PLLC, which he founded in 1978, he has helmed the design of hundreds of award-winning residential, retail, cultural and hospitality venues around the world, making a name for himself by integrating art with his architectural designs, commissioning hundreds of site-specific works from prominent contemporary artists, in flagship luxury retail stores like Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton.

While his mark can be found in world-renowned buildings across the globe, a big piece of his heart has always been in Southampton Village.

The Power of Home

Marino and his wife, the costume designer Jane Trapnell, bought their more than 12-acre estate on Ox Pasture Road in 1991 from the estate of the late Ralph Strauss — the grandson of the founder of Macy’s — and completed a home there several years later.

The estate, which they named “Southeaven,” is another major point of pride for Marino, as evidenced by the enduring smile on his face as he gives a tour of the sprawling property, which feels like a world away from the rest of the village.

He joyfully shares the work that went into the planning and renovating of the various gardens — which he began work on the same day he purchased the property: the pool, fountains, the tennis courts and more — and shares stories of the sculptures and other works of art nestled into different avenues and corners that flow together organically.

He eschews the sharp and stark minimalist lines that define many high-end properties in the Hamptons. Instead, there is a decidedly European, country-estate feel to the property — traditional, and, at the same time, unique.

While sitting underneath his covered veranda on a beautiful July day, with bees buzzing in the gardens, birds chirping and a soft breeze blowing, Marino spoke about the origin of his love for Southampton.

Marino was born in New York City, but before long his family moved to the suburbs — which, in the 1950s, was Douglaston, Queens. As a boy, he joined his friend on a trip to the East End, and it made what would be a lasting impression.

“I was a guest of certain neighbors in Southampton growing up, and I had in my head that this was an aspirational community for me,” he said. “I would spend two weeks here and say, ‘Oh my God, it’s so gorgeous.’”

Aside from the natural beauty, Marino said there were other elements that appealed to him about the area. He loved the potato and duck farms that were ubiquitous at the time — a “farm paradise,” he called it, a region that left him with an overall feeling of “good karma.”

He also felt a connection to the strong tradition of many Polish farmers settling in the area after emigrating from Europe.

“My father’s side of the family is from Italy, but my mother was from Lviv, in Ukraine,” he explained, “which went back and forth between Poland and Ukraine for hundreds of years. So I had an affinity for farmers with Polish names.

“I don’t know, I just like the place a lot,” he continued. “And I liked it as a microcosm of America. We have that terribly posh tennis thing — I’m not a club joiner, I’m more of a black sheep, but I liked that they had that. There were Polish farmers and then also these elegant people in a tennis club wearing all white.”

Marino said he appreciates the tradition, the deep history and small-town touches that remain a vital part of the village. He loves that the central artery is called “Main Street.” And the climate, he said, is a gardener’s dream.

“I went to Cornell, where winter started in September and ended at the end of May,” he said. “Out here, we’re a gardening microcosm, like England or Japan, surrounded by the sea, which never freezes. I can grow things like crepe myrtles, magnolias and gardenias. As an aficionado gardener, it’s very special. I love bringing my European friends here and seeing their faces light up.

“I’m a really proud ambassador for the village,” Marino concluded.

An Art Foundation Is Born

That status was solidified when Marino completed the long and arduous task of opening the Peter Marino Art Foundation in the summer of 2021 — its origin story is one that he loves to tell.

It begins about eight years ago, with an after-dinner stroll down Jobs Lane with his wife. They stopped in front of the historic building that would become the foundation, which, at the time, was occupied by One Kings Lane, a home furnishings and decor company owned by Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Marino was horrified.

“It had a sign that said, ‘Sale: Kitchen Towels,’ and I went, ‘This isn’t right. It’s just not right. I think Mrs. Rogers is turning over in her grave,’” Marino recalled, referring to Harriet Rogers, the library’s namesake.

“My wife and I passed it, and we were cluck-clucking, saying what a pity,” he continued, “and Jane said, ‘Why don’t you get one of your well-heeled clients to buy the building and do something else with it?’”

After several years of trying, Marino could not convince anyone to take on that particular cause. So, Trapnell offered another suggestion.

“She said, ‘The only person who is going to do this is you,’” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

“This is the purpose of a wife who always tells you the obvious, which I’m fortunate to have,” he added. “She said, ‘You’re an architect — you can renovate the building. And you have warehouses full of art that I’m tired of not seeing.’”

The result of nearly a half century of collecting needed a new, more appropriate venue. “She claimed I was an art hoarder,” Marino said. “I said, ‘No, I’m a collector. “Collector” sounds elegant and elevated.’ And she said, ‘No, you’re a hoarder.’ And she got on her hands and knees and pulled boxes of porcelain out from under the bed, and said, ‘You’re a hoarder!’ I was sort of caught.”

Marino burst into his trademark laugh before adding, “She’s a tough, old, Episcopalian dame with a single set of pearls. She’s old school.”

He dove into the project, which proved to be even more daunting than he could have imagined. Simply discovering who owned the building was a labyrinthine effort, as it was tangled up in a web of LLCs, and he called in his friend and real estate developer Aby Rosen for help.

Eventually, they discovered it was part of a commercial real estate investment portfolio centered in Uruguay that owned more than 300 properties in the country — and its owner was not motivated to sell. They were getting good return on investment from Bed, Bath and Beyond, paying about $300,000 for an annual lease. Because of that, he said, he was forced to pay $6 million, double what the building was worth.

Through its renovation, keeping the original structure — including the landmarked façade that still bears the name of Rogers Memorial Library — was important to Marino.

“This was a woman who left her entire estate when she died to build a library to increase literacy in Southampton,” he said, referring to Harriet Rogers. “I can’t think of anything better, karmically, than her gift.”

Marino put his money where his mouth was when it came to defending and honoring the building’s history, the original architects and the community-oriented intent behind its early existence.

Simply purchasing the property was a heavy lift, and then he found himself overseeing a major renovation on a historic building in the middle of a pandemic. It became another storm he and his team weathered, and in June 2021, the foundation officially opened, making it all worth it, he said.

Marino is director of the foundation and his daughter, Isabelle, who is co-director, will take over as director when Marino dies to carry on his legacy. The foundation currently houses 220 works of art, which Marino said represent about a fifth of his collection. Every year, 50 percent of what is on display there is swapped out.

Currently on display are works by Israeli multimedia artist Michal Rovner, whose stature in the international art world is such that institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Museum of Modern Art might struggle to bring her in for a visit, Marino explained.

That said, she participated in a guided tour of her work, alongside Marino, at the foundation last month. “I’m inordinately proud of the level of artists I bring to town,” he said.

Just two years in, others are starting to take notice. Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has visited the foundation several times, bringing along a few Museum of Modern Art board members.

“One member of his board said to him, ‘Well, it’s certainly a high point of culture for the East End of Long Island,’ and Max — he’s from Vienna — and he said to her, ‘Madame, this is a high point of culture in the world.’ That’s what I want our community to realize,” Marino said.

On another tour with members of MOMA’s executive council, Marino recalled one visitor who, unabashedly, asked how “someone like you” attracts world-renowned artists like Rovner and German painter Anselm Kiefer.

“I understand how some people look at me, because I’m an old motorcycle guy and I’m not giving it up,” Marino said with a laugh, fully unbothered. “They’re wealthy, and they feel entitled, and they think they’re terribly clever.

“In order to answer how someone like me gets artists of that quality to come, I pulled out my cellphone and said, ‘Because I know them all personally and they’re friends.’ I said, ‘Which one would you like me to call?’

“And that shut her up.”

Dispelling preconceived notions is all in a day’s work for Marino, who still moves at an almost unbelievable pace. He said he puts in 12 hours daily as an architect while running his firm, which is as busy and in-demand as ever. Saturday morning is typically the only down time of his week, he said, because that’s when his studio is closed.

Between his full-time job and running the foundation, Marino still finds time to devote to his own artistic endeavors, which include making ornate, intricate bronze boxes — which are on view in the museum — and designing gardens, including the proposed space within the community project on Pond Lane.

It begs the question as to where his seemingly boundless energy comes from — and how he retains and maintains it into his mid-70s.

“I had a very late start in life,” Marino said, sharing that a childhood disease meant he was unable to walk or attend traditional school until he was 7 years old — an experience that had a profound and lasting impact on him.

“It produced a mentality where I’m always trying to catch up,” he continued. “I am trying to catch up because I was so far behind all the other kids — miles behind.”

Limited physically for the first several years of his life, he spent much of his time drawing, he said. That ability, combined with his natural aptitude for math, led his father, who worked as an engineer for Northrup Grumman, and school counselors to encourage him to pursue a career in engineering.

Marino, knowing himself, said he was “a little too out there” to be an engineer. His sister Marion Marino settled what was emerging as a debate between father and son by suggesting architecture as a way to combine a love of art with the ability to make a living.

When it came time to attend college, Marino chose Cornell University because it offered educational opportunities in both architecture and fine arts, and he has managed to maintain a connection between the two seemingly disparate fields his whole life, making a name for himself in the process.

When it is suggested that, by now, Marino has caught up to those same kids he was miles behind, and then some, he laughs, calling it a “great kindness” to say so, before adding: “The funny thing is, I don’t think I have. You can’t change that. I have to catch up to those kids playing in the park, and I have that as my life thing, that I have to catch up.

“I don’t feel I’m close to my potential,” he added.

In the Public Eye

It’s an insightful bit of self-reflection, given what others say about him.

Bob Colacello is a writer and well-known art historian who was part of an inner circle of creative elites in the 1970s and 1980s, including, most notably, Andy Warhol. He served as editor of Warhol’s magazine, Interview, for 12 years, bringing it to national prominence before moving on to Vanity Fair, where he is still a contributor. He is also a Southampton resident and associate director of the Peter Marino Art Foundation.

Colacello met Marino in 1974, when Warhol hired the architect to design a new factory in Manhattan. They remained friends then but became closer in recent years though the foundation and geographic proximity.

“I don’t know of any other architect and interior designer who is also such an original and talented landscape designer,” Colacello said, adding, “I really decided that Peter is a genius — and I have been lucky enough to know and work with some geniuses, starting with Andy Warhol.”

From Marino’s insistence on the inclusion of contemporary artwork in the design of luxury flagship stores — like Chanel, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and, most recently, Tiffany’s — to having a keen eye for new artist talent and putting them on the map, his myriad contributions to so many spaces and disciplines is hard to overstate, Colacello said.

“I think Peter is really a patron of the arts,” he said. “That’s the other thing that makes him unique among architects and designers. In the ’80s and ’90s, there were designers who would have people spending $50,000 on a pair of curtains with tassels, and Peter’s attitude was, you can get a great painting for that amount of money.”

Beyond the influence and meaning Marino has brought to the art and architecture worlds, Colacello said he admires his devotion to the village he also now calls home.

“Two years ago, we decided to do a Thanksgiving cider and pumpkin pie cocktail party at the foundation on a Saturday afternoon, and we had no idea about the firetruck parade,” he recalled. “We came out of the foundation, and it was snowing lightly, and people were lined up on the streets, walking to Agawam Park for the tree lighting, and Peter said, ‘I’m so proud to be part of this. It’s a real village and a real place.’

“I feel exactly the same way,” he continued. “This is a village with a real heart and soul — and I think the new park, with the gardens Peter is proposing to design, will just be one more thing that makes Southampton not only a beautiful place but a real place where people feel they belong.”

Southampton Village is happy to have him as well, said Mayor Bill Manger, who took office earlier this summer. He spoke about Marino’s contributions to the village and what his presence here means, especially as it has recently created an arts and culture overlay district in the area where his foundation is housed.

“It is not only wonderful that the Village of Southampton has someone of such world renown as Peter Marino as a resident, but also that he has given so much to this community,” Manger said. “From the gem of a museum that is the Peter Marino Foundation on the corner of Jobs Lane and Main Street to the proposed Southampton Gardens for which he has donated his stellar talent, Peter Marino is helping to bring venues of the highest caliber to Southampton Village.”

He added, “The gardens will be an open space gift in the heart of the village to be enjoyed by this and future generations.”

Trustee Robin Brown has become close with Marino, working with him on several arts endeavors in the village, including taking local students to the foundation for tours. She said his collection has people “in awe” at the foundation doors, and called both his collection and his gardens “breathtaking.”

“All that Peter Marino does, he does masterfully, and well,” she said.

In recent years, several books have been commissioned on Marino’s work in various fields. Phaidon published the large hardcover “Peter Marino: Art Architecture” by Brad Goldfarb in 2016, exploring Marino’s collaborative process when commissioning site-specific works for luxury retail spaces he designed around the globe. A large hardcover book on the foundation was published in 2022, and another Phaidon publication — exploring Marino’s work on 10 different residential architecture projects and titled “Peter Marino: Ten Modern Houses”— is due out next year.

But Marino isn’t ready for the full retrospective just yet. He still has so much more he wants to achieve and accomplish, he said, and refuses to engage with the specter of finality that it would represent.

That does not mean that he and the rest of the staff aren’t thinking about the future and the place the foundation will hold in the village he loves for years to come.

Isabelle Marino, 32, knows her father better than anyone, and will be tasked with shepherding his vision into the future. She’s become accustomed to hearing people sing his praises, but said to her, he’s always been “just my dad.”

Despite having an uncommon work ethic, Isabelle said her father always made time to “do the dad things,” like playing blocks with her or giving her a bath when she was young, and taking her on weekly excursions to all the best galleries and museums in Manhattan when she grew older, instilling in her an intellectual interest and curiosity in the arts.

Isabelle admits that carrying on his legacy is, in some ways, a daunting task although it’s a role she still has time to grow into, under his guidance.

“We all kind of joke that retirement is never going to be an option for him,” she said with a laugh. “He has such a busy mind, he can’t stop working.

“The foundation is so special, and I just hope I can do it justice,” she added.

“What I hope is that with the money I leave to my daughter, she will be able to maintain it for the next 50 years,” Marino said. “And, no, I don’t want it to grow. I don’t want it to get bigger. I’m not a board with a giant ego.

“I’m happy with the size that it is — there’s an intimacy there,” he continued, adding a thought that could best be described as the ultimate Peter Marino way.

“You can listen to all of us speaking, one on one,” he said. “And everybody leaves going, ‘I’ve never had an experience like this.’”