Photography by Doug Young
“Here, try this on.”
I dutifully hold out my arm when Chris Coffee, owner of Sag Harbor’s Sage & Madison, gives the instruction, gently urging me to don a piece from his collection of baubles and bracelets, this one from the husband-and-wife jewelry brand Deepa Gurnani.
I don’t much feel like putting on jewelry. It’s a cold, rainy day; I’m shivering a little and don’t feel particularly put-together. After jockeying for a parking spot on Main Street (fail) and enduring the wet and windblown walk to Sage Street with only the hood on my jacket to keep the rain off, accessories aren’t going to do much for me.
Coffee pushes back the sleeve of my very unglamorous corduroy shirt and clicks the dove-gray, suede-backed cuff onto my wrist. All silver and glass accents, it’s intricately hand-stitched with tiny hearts, pearl-like pieces and swirling silver wire and I’m feeling, well… kind of fabulous. And surprised. And not just a little charmed by Coffee’s instincts, by how he can read the room and the customer. How he was able to size me up and know what I’d like and what might alter my stubbornly glum mood. And the kicker? If I want to walk out and make this pretty little thing my own literal silver lining to this dreary day, it’s a splurge I can swing.
This is Coffee’s gift, or one of them: creating transportive worlds and scenarios. Within them, you can surround yourself with just the right kind of carefully selected pick-me-ups that feel special and thoughtful—or even better, make someone you love feel so special and considered that you look like a mitzvah magician.
“I have a natural ability to see things and understand the aesthetic and get what people want,” Coffee says. “And, you know, cater to their needs from a visual standpoint.”
Certainly, it’s what he’s quite good at, and it’s why he’s also extended his reach to interior design and even hosting and curating events, both at Sage & Madison and offsite. Whenever there’s a world to dream up, Coffee’s ready to make the magic.
But he’s equally passionate about the space in which you find all his treasures. Ever bedecked in its seasonal finest, you can see Coffee’s love for 31 Madison Street. in all its picture-perfect storybook moments: the welcoming and petite courtyard with its wrought-iron chairs and small café tables; the trimmings, both inside and out, much of which you can adorn your own spaces with; the secret little coffee bar tucked inside the small barn. It’s all part of Coffee’s commitment to making Sage & Madison the prettiest little old dowager you’ll see when you cruise into town, forging past and present, and his dogged delight in doing so.
prime time
Sage & Madison—a gift shop, fashion hub and coffee bar all rolled into one tiny historic house and barn—opened in October 2020, two years after Coffee folded his seven-year-old Manhattan business, Gotham Beauty Lounge, a popular prettifying purveyor overlooking Bryant Park whose client base was New Yorkers needing Gotham-proper grooming and editorial mavens who needed models to get camera-ready. During the two-year gap he took a much-needed hiatus, both from the stressful, high-demand New York beauty and fashion industry and after suffering a difficult loss in his personal life.
Coffee had been coming out to the Hamptons for years but was particularly drawn to Sag Harbor’s unique history and small-town vibe. In 2016, he threw down and bought a place for himself in the Watchcase Factory.
“It has a real grit and soul to it, which is different than some of the other Hamptons that feels like it’s just literally old money and you just have to be wealthy to be there,” he says. “I like how the town has a history of factory workers and blue-collar workers.”
It’s also what attracted him to the historic building on the corner of Sage and Madison streets. The house, built in 1797, was initially the residence of a freshly minted Presbyterian minister out of Princeton University named Nathaniel Prime, for whom the house would draw its nickname, “Prime House.” The Federal-style structure, with its classic wood-shingled sides and simple picket-fence steps from Main Street, would become lodging quarters for a series of interesting folks, including actor Hurd Hatfield, jazz musician Hal McKusick and artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik, from whom Coffee would buy it.
“What I built here, I truly did from the heart. It’s really all about keeping the nostalgia and the history and the feeling of the property, so we don’t forget,” Coffee says. “I take that corner very seriously. We’re the first thing you see when you enter the town and it’s important that it’s a welcoming presence.”
see and be scene
Coffee’s desire and capacity to create beauty is at once nature and nurture; part talented artist’s eye, part growing up a little bit hardscrabble. Born in Detroit, Mich., his path to hanging with style icons like Joey Wölffer and Martha Stewart, and hosting events for brands like Oscar de la Renta and Jean-Paul Gaultier, wasn’t initially clear.
“I am a foster child. I was in eight foster homes before the age of three,” Coffee says, a fact he isn’t shy to deploy. “I think a lot of people in my position in life don’t like to be open like that. They don’t want the judgment. But the reality is, I think it’s inspiring to people. I think it’s important that people see that you can go after your dreams.”
His early life turned him into a kid prone to dreaming up better scenarios when coping with less-than-happy circumstances, creating imaginary worlds as places to escape to and be soothed in.
The last foster family Coffee was with adopted him when he was seven years old, and in getting to know him, understood his creative nature and that channeling it was the way to go. “I was a bit hyperactive, and my adoptive mother put me in dance because my sister was a dancer, and I basically started to excel and channel some of that energy toward creative arts,” he says.
He attended the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, launching an initial career as a professional ballet dancer and performing with such venerable troupes as the Oregon Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet. Coffee danced throughout his twenties, but it was hard on the body and mind and he could sense that dancing wouldn’t be a forever career.
His friendship with former famed club kid and sometime fashion designer Richard Eichorn, aka Richie Rich, created an opening for Coffee to pivot into choreography for Fashion Week events and, eventually, to launch Gotham Beauty Lounge, as well as his own line of makeup and other collaborations in the fashion and beauty realm. All these experiences informed and honed his eye for staging, bringing his transportive ideas and visions to reality.
“My passion for art and my creativity basically stems from performing arts, from dance,” Coffee says. “The attention to detail and everything really stems from ballet and always having to pay attention. Ballet is all detail oriented. So it’s kind of a similar field and mentality.”
comforts of home
When Sage & Madison first opened, Coffee ran the house as a boutique hotel with the little barn as a sort of value-add for guests and anyone strolling past. It functions as a place to pick up all order of treats: lovely English teas, artisanal chocolates, beautiful accessories, pretty holiday ornaments and mementos of every sort, each of them packed into the little wooden space. Over time, though, the balance has tipped, with the entire first floor of Prime House filled to the brim with the wares borne of Coffee’s well-trained eye, and the hospitality end of things being rethought for the moment.
The spreading tendrils of Coffee’s creative urges certainly needed the room (and rooms) to breathe, and with each one you enter you are nestled into a scenario and moment where, chockablock as it all is, it makes sense.
Grab a hot cup of his own branded Sage & Madison coffee and start your meandering right there in the barn, which has become, of late, a bit of a fashion hub filled with cozy outerwear, including Coffee’s new line of winter coats, and branded swag for take-home trinkets. Exit to the flagstone courtyard and head into the back room of the house, where an antique desk holds a thoroughly original and elegant cluster of cards and notepaper, gift bags, notebooks and sweet little seasonally themed watercolor workbooks by Emily Lex filled with a dozen gently sketched images for you to paint. Turn to your right and notice the embroidery thread high on the corner wall: want something personalized à la minute? Coffee’s staff can embroider lettering on tea towels, totes and, this time of year, Christmas stockings to be hung by the fire.
Step into the next room—once a kitchen, with its wide plank floors and stately fireplace—and a feast of treats awaits, with imported Tuscan olive oils, French candies from Les Anis de Flavigny, tea from Mariage Frères, gorgeous chocolates from Louis Sherry (who introduced New Yorkers to Gallic chocolate in the late 19th century), thread-dyed Busatti kitchen towels and all manner of serving and cooking accoutrements with copper, marble and wood accents.
Next is the dining room, set as such in lush table linens and everything you need to make your holiday dining a vision of festive merriment—Bordallo Pinheiro cabbage-leaf dishes, Backcountry Mercantile’s Murano glass, wrought-iron candle holders and beautiful beeswax candles to put in them. And the next room? The baubles and bracelets mentioned earlier, all of which Coffee sources from small-jewelry artisans and makers. Some are from his own Sage & Madison fine jewelry line, the pricier of the gamut, but again—if a pick-me-up is what you need, there’s reasonable luxury for the taking.
When you leave, maybe with something small, maybe with something far more splurge-y, maybe with just a cup of coffee, you’ll feel like you’ve traveled a little bit to both the past and a more beautiful present. It’s kind of like when you sit in a theater and get a little lost in the swirl.
“It’s all production. It’s all a show. You know what I mean? It’s what I’m naturally good at and what I do,” Coffee says. “It’s from working with brands and creating the most magical experience with it, but it really all stems from my background in dance. You know, rehearsing and then the show goes on. What is our job? It’s to wow people.”
