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A First Look at Thomas O'Brien's New Book, Library House

Launching this fall, the volume gives a personal look into the designer's Bellport, New York, home and studio
man in collared shirt with glasses
Thomas O'Brien.Photo: Michelle Arcila

Fans of designer Thomas O'Brien's work would jump at the chance to take a personal tour of the Library, one of the two buildings on his property in Bellport, New York, which he shares with his designer husband, Dan Fink. And in his third book, Library House (Abrams, $60), launching this October, O'Brien offers just that—opening the doors to his personal home and studio space, revealing, in the process, not only the home's thoughtfully designed interiors, but the very manner in which O'Brien approaches them and his design work as a whole.

"The book is really a tour of the house," O'Brien says. "When people come visit, there's always a tour that we do, and when my editor at Abrams came and we gave her the tour, she said 'Hands down, this is the book.'"

The cover of O'Brien's third book.

Photo: Courtesy of Abrams

The tour spans the entirety of the Library House and its gardens, in an order carefully selected by O'Brien. "You walk in the front door and we come in and go around the side entrance—because there’s a visual connection between this house and the Academy, so we go see that—and then we come through the front of the house and into the library, then out to the garden, and then back in through the upstairs," the designer explains.

Along the way, visitors—and now readers—get a close look at O’Brien’s deft ability to create a truly collected space. "It’s a library of all kinds of home things," O'Brien explains of the house's moniker. "There were books everywhere in the Academy (under beds, stacked around), so there was literally a need for a library. But the Library House is more than just a library of books; it’s a library of dishes, textiles—I have piles of textiles from the old days of Marshall Fields and Target. I’m a collector of so many things and I had so much that was in storage, from the early days of Aero to different product collections."

A mix of patterns and texture and plenty of antiques give the Library House a lived-in feel, despite it being a new home.

Photo: Francesco Lagnese

In addition to satiating the universal guilty pleasure of peeking into someone’s personal space, the assortment offers a glimpse into O’Brien’s creative process. "When I put together different collections, I’m always inspired by these things,” says the designer by way of explaining his gatherer habits. “It’s not always direct—sometimes a dish inspires something completely different. In my upcoming collaboration with Patterson Flynn Martin, at least three of those rugs were inspired by modern ceramics."

O'Brien calls the home "a library of many things," including glassware and ceramics from his collection.

Photo: Francesco Lagnese

For O'Brien, the space functions as a way of presenting his vision to clients, as well as serving as his own inspiration. "I had an important meeting with Bloomingdale's recently, and we toured the house and then had a meeting in the studio and lunch here," O'Brien recalls. "When I was working on the Century line, we spent a lot of time in the garden. There’s one client for whom we’re doing a big renovation up in Nyack, [New York,] and are really redesigning all the details—I love designing millwork—and so we had the client up here and were going through doors and bathrooms." In this way, the designer says, he can use his own space as the type of reference point he once would have illustrated with photos or idea boards.

"Whether its a residential client or a product line, just having the lunch in the kitchen and being in the house is such an important part of the day," says O'Brien. "It's nice to have everything in this environment."

A staircase hung with artwork.

Photo: Francesco Lagnese

After all, it’s an environment that O’Brien has painstakingly crafted to reflect his unique vision: a lived-in feel within the framework of traditional details. In its blurb, Abrams describes the Library House as "a new house that looks as if it had been built over generations." Indeed, that’s the feeling O’Brien, through his meticulous attention to detail, historical knowledge, and passionate collecting, has evoked—and which comes through on the book’s pages.

"I love the types of old houses that have been added onto over time, and this has definitely been made to feel like that," O'Brien says. "In the kitchen, there’s a window that goes outside and one that goes to the back stair. I find things like that in old houses really charming and intriguing. As I put together the plans for the whole house, I did imagine it that way, and that the story of it is something that you’re inclined to imagine but you can't quite put your finger on."

It's a house, quite simply, that tells a story all on its own.

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