Celebrity Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Marc Lowenberg Tapped His High-Profile Clientele To Craft His Water Mill Home

When crafting his Water Mill home, celebrity cosmetic dentist Dr. Marc Lowenberg drew on his innate creativity and the wisdom of his high-profile clientele—right from the dental chair.

For cosmetic dentist Dr. Marc Lowenberg of Lowenberg, Lituchy & Kantor, a seriously smileworthy home is all in the character and details. That’s why for the creation of his Water Mill abode, he picked the brains of his high-profile patients, including some of the design industry’s top talents, to compose his palatial, shingle-style home upon a property reminiscent of an utterly peaceful park.

“When creating smiles, I take many factors into account, including the patients’ personalities,” Lowenberg shares. “That attention to detail comes through in all elements of design.” While he spends his days creating flawless smiles for the celebrities and well-heeled, he applied the same creative inclination in this process of crafting his abode. As he aptly puts it, “Creativity is never one-dimensional.”

Creating this sanctuary began with the great outdoors. “Before I embarked on creating a landscape, I studied the works of Frederick Olmsted, who developed the landscape design of Central Park,” Lowenberg explains. “Following what I learned from Olmsted’s work, it took several years to transplant the hundreds of existing trees and evergreens that covered the property to the borders of the 4-acre estate. Once that was complete, I began to layer the borders with nursery-bought evergreens, creating a canvas of different colors and textures, so that everything looks natural to the environment and appears as though it has been there for years.”

While concepting the architecture and floor plan, Lowenberg drew inspiration from books on McKim, Mead & White and old and new Hamptons homes that he liked. From there, he was able to map out exactly how he wanted to live.

Once the house was framed, Lowenberg called on the talents of his patient Craig Arm—a member of the captive audience who contributed to the home— who provided a lot to the final details. “From that experience, I quickly realized that I probably had the best design contributors in the world sitting in my dental chair,” Lowenberg says. Indeed, he did. “I soon began soliciting their advice and guidance in improving my vision.”

With that mission in mind, Lowenberg set out to gather wisdom from the creative mavens he meets with day after day. “Designer Ken Alpert was a tremendous influence in improving the project,” he notes. “Showing him the plans, he would quickly point out mistakes that I had made or see a nuance that I had missed and added design elements that were priceless.” Martha Stewart is another dear friend and patient whom Lowenberg leaned on for creative inspiration. “I had stayed at her house in Maine and fell in love with the kitchen cabinets,” he says. “She let me copy the design and custom color of the cabinets... Whenever a guest asks where something is, I say, ‘Look in the Martha Stewart closets.’ The reply is always, ‘What?’” Another muse in this project was his patient David Meitus of Studium, who sat in his chair week after week and helped select tiles for many of the bathrooms. “Every time he disagreed with my choices, he would say, ‘Lowenberg, stick to dentistry.’” With Meitus’ well-advised assistance, they were able to create Lowenberg’s favorite room in the house, the primary bathroom—complete with classic Carrera marble.

“The list of patients who made contributions is almost endless,” Lowenberg notes. Sandra Nunnerley helped select paint colors and the oak floor finish, and Donna Parker and Raul Carrasco, who weighed in on and designed the furniture, contributed. And then there was Geoffrey Bradfield, who, knowing Lowenberg’s style, emailed him from London with news that he found the perfect chandelier for the entry.

“In the end, it was my longtime friend and patient Vicente Wolf who pulled the house together,” Lowenberg concludes. “His talents are boundless, taking things that I had thrown away and reinventing them in a way I had never thought of. He made the house immediately livable. Looking back, I would have to say this house was really created by a small village of my patients whose generosity of spirit helped me to create my happy place.”