DESIGN by KRISTIN REGEN, KR INTERIOR DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY by MEGHAN BALCOM
TEXT by DONNA ROLANDO
Kristin and Jon Regen’s Perusal of local real estate was playful at first. The couple and their two boys had enjoyed summertime fun on the Jersey Shore for years, but they had no definite plans to buy a beach house there—until they found the house they couldn’t resist.
“We would just peek,” says Kristin Regen, “but then this house turned up. It just felt right.” The Point Pleasant Beach bungalow’s perfect location was just a short stroll from the beach, and its price was tempting. They made the purchase in the fall of 2023.
Focused on potential and not on flaws, they followed Regen’s vision of a New England coastal cottage, a vision she was more than equipped to fulfill as owner of KR Interior Design in Summit. Regen bid adieu to the home’s previous ’90s décor and sought to create a modern, artistic setting, maximizing light and bright, open and airy, for a true vacation vibe. Courtesy of existing skylights, this retreat was already “full of light,” but the designer took it a step further by transforming dark paneling and beadboard with Benjamin Moore’s Simply White. She added entertainment possibilities by removing the wall between kitchen and family room, and cleanup ease with “whitewashed, beachy-look,” luxury vinyl flooring throughout, often covered with jute rugs from Surya for a natural grass effect.
Then, as they fast-tracked to finish before summer 2024, the project suffered a near death stroke with the discovery of a rotted support beam in a crawl space. Their general contractor, Hanover Home Rebuilding, wanted Regen to see the extent of the mold damage, so he sent a video showing he could actually stick his finger through the hole. To stress the need for action, he said, “I’m sorry, you’re one house party away from this just busting.” The fix was a tough one: Someone had to crawl on their back and make repairs in a very tight space.
Fortunately, Frank Smith of Capital Contracting was able to “shimmy in a composite support beam without ruining the work,” Regen says.
To create the desired coastal vibe in the family room, the owner-designer used artwork— some collected from the couple’s own travels, such as a California sunset—and beachy elements like the ceruse wood coffee table by Crate & Barrel and starburst mirror with iridescent Capiz shells by Anthropologie. This room’s eclectic gallery, featuring an abstract by legendary German artist Peter Keil, is more than eye candy, as the art has a unifying effect. “I really wanted to pull the orange and the teals from the sofa and the pillows,” Regen explains.
There are times for splurging, but since this is not the family’s primary home, she looked for economies too. Luckily, the Royal Granite countertop she and her collaborators curated to rein in the budget was a “beautiful slab” abounding in movement, she says. They kept it simple with Shaker-style cabinets, but stretched them to the ceiling and added brass hardware to match the brass faucet. A matte, marble-tile backsplash offers a cornucopia of color variations.
Evoking turquoise ocean hues, a wall-consuming abstract—purchased at an estate sale near home in Summit—carries the coastal theme in the dining room. The white ceruse wood table from Serena & Lily says “beach,” but its contrast with black Ethan Allen chairs is a modern influence. A frosted glass chandelier by Ballard Designs posed another challenge, so heavy it needed extra support, Regen says.
Wallpaper makes for sweet dreams in both the primary bedroom and a guest bedroom. For the master, color aficionado Regen says, “I was looking for the perfect shade of blue,” which she found in a soft floral by York Wallcoverings. She added Pennsylvania artist Danny Laffey’s sunset for its pop of orange over a wicker dresser and expressed her passion for prints and patterns with the bedding, topped with block-printed pillows. Completing the scene is a whitewashed, wood bead chandelier and bone-inlay nightstand with crystal lamp.
Styling her own house, instead of catering to a customer, had its perks, such as being able to reflect her favorite flowers—hydrangeas—in a rich York and Rifle Paper Co. wallcovering. “If you go down to the beach, it’s one of the main flowers you see here,” Regen says. For a modern twist she tossed in as a “wild card,” she paired a green accent table from Amsterdam’s Polspotten with a bent cane chair from a Brielle gift shop.
Despite the rocky road to that first summer at the bungalow, Regen finds that serenity is the feeling her beach house inspires most. “We wanted this place to be a respite to take us away from our everyday hustle and bustle to something that feels like a breath of fresh air,” she says. And so it is.