This Prefab Beach Shack in Montauk Is a Surfing Family’s Dream Come True

As a leader in the New York City residential real estate market, Louise Phillips Forbes was well acquainted with the work of HGTV stars Robert and Cortney Novogratz when she asked them to design her family’s new getaway in the Hamptons.

Louise and her family owned a half-million-dollar lot in Montauk Shores—a 20-acre trailer park known as a billionaire hotspot for its high-end amenities and coveted beach location—and they wanted to install a roughly $200,000 double-wide prefab from Indiana-based Hi-Tech Housing. The family of four called upon the Novogratz design duo’s playful and artsy design sensibilities to transform the "generic white box prefab" into a cozy surfer paradise.

"Because the home was built off-site, we didn’t have the opportunity to spend time in it before we started our decorating plans, which is unusual for us," share the Novogratzes, who featured the prefab home in their new book, Novogratz Design Fix: Chic and Stylish Tips for Every Decorating Scenario. "We had to rely on blueprints and the manufacturer’s renderings, and extrapolate the best we could."

To make the 1,160-square-foot prefab feel more spacious for the family of four, the Novogratzes asked the factory to increase the ceiling height by a few feet, remove several walls, and install taller doors. The prefab was constructed in two parts and then shipped to the site and installed atop the existing foundation.