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"View Slideshow\n\nA lot could have gone wrong after Mark Bitter, co-president of Scalamandr\u00E9, asked an old friend, the Manhattan designer Jeff Lincoln, to decorate his house on the north shore of Long Island.\n\nThe two men\u2014both successful and in closely related professions\u2014have a lot in common. In fact, they grew up together on Long Island's affluent Gold Coast. As adults, both became third-generation scions of family businesses.\n\nIn 1929 Mark's grandfather Franco Scalamandr\u00E9, an immigrant from Italy, founded the Scalamandr\u00E9 firm in New York. Today it is renowned for its fine, historically inspired silks, wools, linens and cottons, wallcoverings and elaborate trims. For more than 75 years the company has supplied luxurious work to interior designers and important public institutions such as the White House, Mount Vernon and Colonial Williamsburg.\n\n\"The eclectic use of fabrics obviates the overly done' effect. I wanted it to be both formal and informal.\"\n\nJeff Lincoln's grandmother established her own interior design business in the 1940s, with offices on Long Island and Park Avenue. Her son Frank took over the firm in the 1950s and did so well he opened a second office in Vero Beach, Florida. In the 1980s he moved the business, Frank J. Lincoln Interiors, to Vero Beach permanently. Fifteen years ago he decided to close his New York office, and Jeff Lincoln suddenly found himself interested. \"I had never wanted to do interior design,\" he says. \"I had graduated from Columbia Journalism School and was working at The Wall Street Journal, but I felt a certain pride and wanted to keep the family business going.\" In 1996 he founded Jeff Lincoln Interiors.\n\nThree years ago Mark Bitter and his wife, Wiggie (a nickname for Willa), who is Scalamandr\u00E9's director of marketing, called Jeff Lincoln after buying a Federal-style house in Meadowspring, an exclusive enclave of estates in Glen Cove. The house, built in the 1900s, was charming in an old-fashioned way. Today the 6,500-square-foot residence might be considered a bit cozy: It has a small entrance hall leading to the long, narrow living room, a narrow dining room, the kitchen and, behind it, a small family room. The Bitters appreciate it because they like being close to their three girls, all under the age of 16.\n\n\"I wanted the interior to look classic, comfortable and youthful,\" the designer explains. Lincoln also intended to use a wide range of Scalamandr\u00E9 fabrics in an edited, detailed way. \"After all, the client is the owner of one of the finest fabric houses,\" he says.\n\nIn the dining room, Lincoln employed a red-and-yellow palette and an abundance of patterns to enliven the long, dark room. \"The decorating here is 70 percent fabrics,\" he says. He began by installing draperies in a cheerful yellow, red and white plaid. The walls, which he upholstered in a soft red damask, serve as a backdrop for the Bitters' collection of mahogany furniture and blue-and-white porcelain. (\"Jeff has the ability to take what's there and make it better,\" Wiggie Bitter remarks.) To soften the look, Lincoln ordered a custom-braided rug \"to bring the formality down a notch,\" Lincoln says.\n\nThe sunny living room takes its cue from the gilding on the elegant 18th-century Swedish wall clock: The four antique faux-marbre columns on the mantel, the large mirror and the wrought-iron tables all have gilt trim. \"I like taking modern and traditional and mixing them,\" Lincoln says. \"But you have to be careful; you can't mix just anything.\"\n\nThe furnishings include a leopard-print ottoman, a striped slipper chair, two verdure-print settees and two lush table skirts. The rug is sisal, \"for texture and informality,\" Lincoln says. \"After all, you are in the country.\" He chose simple window treatments \"to help elevate the low-ceilinged space,\" he says, adding: \"The eclectic use of fabrics obviates the overly done' effect. I wanted it to be both formal and informal, with light Neoclassical references.\"\n\nThe more casual sunroom is a riot of green-and-white pattern. The walls and sofa are covered in a toile de Jouy; the draperies and club chairs are in a check. \"It's a fresh scheme to evoke the outdoors,\" he says. Somehow, nothing clashes.\n\nThe master bedroom is a tour de force. Before Lincoln was hired, the Bitters had had the walls upholstered in striped silk.\"It was a disaster, like a padded cell,\" Wiggie Bitter recalls. \"We were so unhappy. But Jeff seems to come up with a solution to every problem.\"\n\nLincoln decided to hang on the walls long rectangular panels of diamond-quilted celadon silk taffeta, each trimmed with a Greek-key tape. \"They give architecture to the room,\" he says. He then used a classic chintz for the headboard, canopy and bed skirt and added glamour with two mirrored bedside tables. Now the room is Wiggie Bitter's favorite. \"There's a certain godliness to the details,\" she says. \"A lot of designers just don't have it.\"\n\nBoth Bitters are thrilled with Lincoln's work and speed; the project was all done in eight months. \"The house has a youthful spirit,\" says Wiggie Bitter. \"Jeff added elements that cut out the stuffiness.\"\n\nIn fact, Mark Bitter has asked Lincoln to style Scalamandr\u00E9's showrooms and create a new line of upholstered furniture. Old friends have found a new synergy."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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