New York-based interior designer Jeff Lincoln has headed East to embark on a gallery/retail concept. According to Lincoln, his decorative arts gallery, Collective, located in a revitalized 19th-century power station in Southampton, targets “collectors and designers who work in this contemporary idiom, primarily,” connecting them with furniture, lighting and other objects from luminaries like Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Joaquim Tenreiro, The Haas Brothers and Marcel Wanders, among others. He chats with EAL about decor, the new space, and why Collective’s Hamptons presence will long outlive the summer.

Tell us about the concept.
The concept behind the gallery is to showcase important contemporary art in context with collectible design from leading designers from around the world. Industry originators like Wendell Castle, to the latest from The Hass Brothers and David Wiseman from L.A., to the Netherlands’ cutting-edge designer Joris Laarman. For collectors, and in particular art collectors, unique and limited-edition design, as you probably know, has been the big story in the last decade or more.

Design Miami / Basel saw record numbers for attendance and sales this year. So, pairing design with art from artists like Richard Prince and John Wesley, Christopher Wool and Eric Fischl, made obvious sense. The large and interesting reclaimed industrial space—the gallery used to be the power station for the town of Southampton in the 19th century—allows me the room to stage multiple juxtapositions that highlight the increasing fluidity between art and design.

Will you be open year-round?
I do plan to be open year-round, as my formulation is this is a gallery that happens to be located in the Hamptons, and not a Hamptons gallery per se. That is to say I am trying to do something on a global scale rather than a purely local one. And of course, Southampton is a fantastic place to be, in its own right. Additionally, it is becoming a more year-round destination, so it makes sense to be here all the time.