DESIGN by SHESI AZEEZ OF ALL THINGS WERE MADE
PHOTOGRAPHY by ANTHONY SORRENTINO
TEXT by LESLIE GARISTO PFAFF
It was an opportunity hidden inside a disaster. Mike and Lauren Sorrentino had long been thinking about renovating the kitchen in their house in Holmdel. Then, in 2021, they awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of falling water—falling, as it happens, directly into their kitchen, from a burst pipe in the ceiling. The space, along with much of the upstairs flooring, was a complete loss. So those “someday” plans for a new kitchen were put into place considerably sooner than Lauren and Mike— better known as “The Situation” from the popular reality- TV series Jersey Shore—had anticipated.
“It was a blessing in disguise,” says Lauren, who’d never been happy with the space’s original layout. Two of the kitchen walls comprised a bank of windows that allowed light to flood into the room. But it nevertheless felt cramped, thanks to features like floating upper cabinets and a poorly placed peninsula. Suspended from the ceiling, the cabinets impeded the kitchen’s visual and physical flow. So did the peninsula, which ran parallel to one of the outer walls, making the area between the peninsula and the windowed wall feel like a narrow hallway.
Designer Shesi Azeez helped the couple turn their vision for a more open, more contemporary kitchen into a dazzling reality, though the renovation wasn’t without its challenges. Chief among them was the slightly angular floor plan, which could have made the pair of rectangular islands that the Sorrentinos asked for look ill-fitting. Azeez solved that problem by cutting off one end of each of the islands at an angle. Another challenge was finding a look that complemented the house’s contemporary architectural style but “didn’t feel too modern and definitely was not traditional,” says Lauren. Azeez accomplished that by adding small flourishes to otherwise clean-lined elements: The very linear cabinets, for instance, are accented at the ceiling with an understated angular pediment.
Not all the design choices are similarly subtle. The kitchen derives its wow factor from the dramatically veined Calacatta marble called Viola, used not just on one of the two islands as a countertop and waterfall edge but also as a backsplash behind the stove. Choosing marble, which is notorious for staining, might have been a risky decision in a family home with young children (a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old, and a third on the way). But Azeez had the surfaces coated with a marble sealant called TuffSkin, so the Sorrentinos can breathe easy when little hands make contact with countertops. The second island also sports a marble countertop, but in a more subtle white with pale gray veining. “Since the Viola is very veiny and dramatic, I didn’t want to have it
on both islands,” says Azeez. “The second island is more of a utility space, and we wanted it to be a lot simpler.”
The main island derives its drama not just from its materials but also from its form: The top of the island is traditional counter height but the edges are dropped to table height so that diners at the island aren’t elevated over those at the nearby dining table.
Elements throughout the kitchen echo the island’s darker veining, including the kitchen table, whose wooden top is black with brown undertones, and the metal pieces— burnished brass that will patinate to a dark brown over time—that accent the striking contemporary alabaster pendants. The doors throughout the home are also black with hints of dark brown.
The overall space, though, is anything but dark. It’s suffused with light, pouring in through the pair of windowed walls, which bounces off the pale-wood cabinetry. “I’m notoriously anti-white-kitchens,” says Azeez. Her choice of the lighter wood keeps the kitchen bright but warms it up considerably.
Functionally, Azeez included very little in the way of upper cabinetry, a choice that initially made Lauren Sorrentino nervous. “Is this really going to work?” she asked herself as the renovation progressed. But in the end, the large double islands and roomy lower cabinets delivered all the storage she needed.
She and her husband are especially delighted with a slew of small functional touches, including a pot filler behind the stove, interior-lit cabinets and drawers, and a Miele coffeemaker plumbed into the wall. They also love the refrigerated drawers that hold kid products like milk, juice pouches and snacks. Sure, they’re functional, notes Lauren, but they’re also, well, cute. “My 1-year-old waddles over to the little drawer,” she says, “and pulls out what she wants to snack on—definitely safer than having her try to open the big fridge.” It may be sexy, but in the end, this is a kitchen designed for family living.