AD Visits Robert Downey Jr.'s Playful Hamptons Home

Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, producer Susan Downey, take a break from the fast lane in a magical Hamptons compound tailor-made for family fun
robert downey jr hamptons home

"We wanted something we haven’t seen a million times,” the Iron Man star says, describing the property itself as well as the decorative ministrations of AD100 designer Joe Nahem and the team at New York City–based Fox-Nahem Associates. “We didn’t set out to do something conspicuously wacky. We just enjoy a bit of whimsy and fun. And we definitely don’t like boring,” he adds.

The Downeys originally met Nahem two summers ago, when they rented the heavenly Amagansett country house the designer shares with his partner, Jeffrey Fields. “We immediately loved the aesthetic of the place,” Susan recalls. “When you step into a designer’s own home, it’s like cooking in a chef’s own kitchen. You really get a sense of who they are.”

We didn’t set out to do something conspicuously wacky. We just enjoy a bit of whimsy and fun.

The couple was so intrigued by the decor that they dialed up Nahem and Fields for a meeting. “We went to lunch, and by the end of the meal, we knew we loved these guys,” Robert says. One of the many auspicious auguries of a fruitful friendship was the realization that Joe, Jeff, and Robert all share the same birthday. Spooky.

The Downeys said goodbye to Nahem and Fields that summer with a request that the designers alert them to any particularly enticing properties coming onto the market in the Hamptons. Several months later, Nahem found a place that more than fit the bill: a late–19th century windmill folly, originally constructed as a playhouse, that had been transformed into a full-fledged residence by way of structural additions grafted onto the building in the decades following its construction. Among the many attributes of the estate were proximity to the town of East Hampton coupled with the privacy of a secluded location, enchanting gardens conjured by landscape designer Joseph Tyree for the home’s previous owners, and those sublime trees that dot the lawns like masterpieces of sculpture.

An Andrius Petkus sculpture rises in front of the cottage.

Nahem didn’t have much time to revel in the triumph of his matchmaking. As soon as his clients acquired the property, they gave their designer a mere six weeks to transform the home into a Downey-rific sanctuary keyed to the couple’s adventurous aesthetic tastes and the comfort of their children, five-year-old son Exton and three-year-old daughter Avri. (The actor has another son, 24-year-old Indio, with his ex-wife, Deborah Falconer.) “The schedule was insane,” Nahem recalls. “Robert and Susan spend a lot of the year on the road, so they’re very sensitive about their own homes feeling genuinely homey. We had less than two months to completely refurnish the entire house, down to the sheets, towels, and flatware, so they could enjoy it that Christmas.”

Happily, once the holiday season was over, Nahem and his team were able to return to the home and begin the renovation in earnest. One of the biggest changes was the reconfiguration of the living room that lies just beyond the octagonal entry foyer at the base of the windmill. To give the transitional area a greater sense of place, the designer sunk the living room several feet and anchored it with a massive wraparound fireplace wall by ceramic artist Peter Lane. “Part of the joy of working with Joe is sharing his excitement about reaching out to these incredibly talented artisans,” Robert says. “These kinds of collaborations require a leap of faith, but that’s part of the fun. We enjoy the experimentation.”

Another major component of the renovation involved rethinking the pool area to suit the Downeys’ vision of easy, breezy outdoor leisure. Rather than making the guesthouse do double duty as a swimming cabana, as it had in the previous scheme, Nahem designed a freestanding poolside pavilion, in collaboration with Alveary Architecture, replete with a dining setup centered on a mosaic-topped table by Kelly Behun Studio, an outdoor living room and bar, and a television almost as large as the screens at the local multiplex. “We now spend the whole day out there, hanging out with the kids and our friends,” Susan states. “Plus, the old pool was dropped into the middle of the lawn, which made me crazy. I hated stepping out onto wet grass. Joe obliged me by installing a proper deck.”

As for the interiors of the house itself, the mix represents an amiable consensus among the Downeys and their designer: pedigreed pieces and unpretentious off-the-rack staples, poppy colors and soothing neutrals, eccentric accents and discreet luxuries. It’s an idiosyncratic assemblage that speaks equally to the actor’s puckish spirit, his wife’s concerns for efficiency and ease, and Nahem’s finesse in crafting eminently livable homes with a touch of otherworldly magic.

“Our previous experience with designers was sucky. We’d pretty much surrender to the will of the experts, then harbor a white-hot resentment,” Robert writes in his foreword to Fox-Nahem: The Design Vision of Joe Nahem, a dazzling monograph published by Abrams. “Mrs. Downey and I have enjoyed a remarkable collaboration with the entire Fox-Nahem team. We’ve been pushed out of our ‘comfort zone’ without losing our personal sense of style, taste, or dignity.” In other words, not sucky at all.