The SandPaper , Beach Haven NJ, July 2004

When New York City and Holgate residents David Allieri and Mark Eggleston decided to open a home interior store in Beach Haven, they had to consider two different styles in their vision that went bent beyond the contrast of urban and ocean scenes: they had to consider each other.

    "David likes a more beachy look," Eggleston said of Allieri, "He likes antiques and a more cottage feel.  On the otherhand, I am into clean lines, but not necessarily modern," the interior designer continued, lounging comfortably in the homey atmosphere of their store opened this year, Wyndecrest Home, on Second Street.

    The refinement of both styles has brought something unique to Beach Haven, in a casual stylishness that invites its patrons more as guests into their home than as mere beach-weary shoppers.  Its storefront is adorned with the sharp symmetry of lined curtains, softened by the dulcet shades of warm pinks and yellows, shading bone china vases on the worn tops of antique farmhouse tables.  The welcoming interior, which Allieri and Eggleston built around two amply upholsterend white slipper chairs and the flora reaching outward from a large cement urn, is accented by naked brick walls that provide a strong, yet functional presence in the store...

    While Allieri's tastes have been influenced by the halycon summers he spent as a child on the Island - a love affair that has translated almost to an obsession, with a collection of more than 300 antique sandpails lining the entrance hall of their home in the city - Eggleston's have been cultivated through his year's of study in Chicago, Paris, and New York, an education that has shaped not only the store, but his take on interior design.

    "What I love is that everyone and everything here is comfortable," said Patricia Donovan Mader, a Manhattan resident and long-time friend while attending an opening party at Wyndecrest Home.  Mader has used Eggleston's interior design services to do several rooms in her former home in Connecticut, and will use him again for her newly purchased Nova Scotia getaway.  "It's eclectic, casual and everyday," Mader said of both Eggleston's designs and the carefully chosen items that adorn the store.  "They're beach and urban eclectic at the same time."

    And most importantly, the fellow designer confided, "I'm confident that everything that comes into this store is going to be fabulous.  The combination of David and Mark is what makes the store."