By David Hornung, Co-Founder & Principal Designer, D&J Concepts

Steve Chase once told a client that the stone floor he had specified would look better in ten years than on the day it was installed. The client, accustomed to materials that started perfect and degraded from there, thought he was being eccentric. He was being prophetic. Chase’s approach to sustainable luxury materials anticipated by decades a market shift that Bain & Company now tracks as one of the defining trends in ultra-high-net-worth residential design: the preference for materials that age with character rather than materials that resist aging entirely.

David Hornung was in his twenties when he absorbed this philosophy firsthand, working alongside Chase in Los Angeles. The lesson was not environmental. Chase never used the language of sustainability. He used the language of honesty. A material that pretends to be something it is not will eventually reveal the pretense. A material that presents itself truthfully, that shows its grain, its weight, its geological or biological history, will reward the inhabitant with increasing beauty over time. That principle now guides every material specification at D&J Concepts.

The Chase Material Palette: What Lasted

Chase’s interiors in Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs were defined by a material vocabulary that reads as remarkably contemporary today. Granite in its natural state, not polished to a mirror finish. Leather that invited touch rather than displaying showroom perfection. Wood selected for character rather than uniformity, often specified in cuts that emphasized grain pattern over flawless consistency.

In his Palm Springs Life interview, Chase articulated a position that sounds like a manifesto for today’s sustainable luxury materials movement. He did not want people to walk into a home and automatically know it was his work. The materials, not the designer’s signature, should define the space. This meant selecting surfaces that had their own identity: stones with visible geological history, metals that developed patina, textiles that softened with washing rather than stiffening.

What Chase understood intuitively, material science now confirms quantitatively. Natural materials do not merely age differently from synthetic alternatives. They age better. Genuine marble develops micro-scratches that become part of its surface narrative. Unlacquered brass transitions through a spectrum of warm tones as oxidation progresses. Hand-troweled lime plaster breathes with humidity changes, preventing the moisture problems that synthetic alternatives can trap behind sealed surfaces.

Natural vs. Engineered: The 25-Year Test

The sustainable luxury materials conversation becomes concrete when you apply a 25-year timeline. Engineered quartz countertops maintain their appearance for approximately five years. After that, UV exposure begins to yellow certain resins. Micro-scratches that would add character to natural stone instead reveal the composite substrate. By year ten, the surface that was chosen specifically because it would not change has changed in ways that diminish rather than enhance the space.

Natural Calacatta marble, by contrast, is visually different at year 25 than at installation. The difference is not degradation. It is biography. The faint ring from a wine glass at a dinner party. The slight darkening in the area where morning coffee is prepared daily. These marks tell the story of the life lived on that surface, which is precisely what Chase meant when he said his materials would improve with time.

D&J Concepts applies this long-view philosophy to every specification. Rift-cut white oak flooring develops a honey tone over years of sunlight exposure that enriches the room’s warmth. Lime-washed walls build subtle depth as subsequent coats interact with the base. Handmade tiles, with their intentional irregularities, create a surface that becomes more interesting at close range rather than less.

Provenance as Value: Where Materials Come From

According to McKinsey & Company’s luxury market research, material provenance has become a primary purchase driver among buyers at the $10 million property level and above. Knowing where a stone was quarried, who milled the wood, and how the metal was finished is no longer optional information. It is expected, in the same way that provenance documentation is expected for fine art.

Chase maintained relationships with quarries, foundries, and workshops throughout his career, not because supply chain management was fashionable but because he needed to verify that the material in the home matched the material he had approved. That same verification process now defines best practice for sustainable luxury materials specification. D&J Concepts visits fabricators, inspects stone slabs in person, and verifies that wood is sourced from managed forests before including it in a material palette.

Furthermore, provenance connects to sustainability in ways that marketing language often obscures. A marble slab quarried in Italy, finished in Vermont, and installed in Southampton carries a different environmental profile than a composite surface manufactured in China and shipped across the Pacific. The genuine article often travels a shorter total distance and involves fewer chemical processes than the synthetic alternative designed to replicate it. Sustainable luxury materials are frequently the original materials that synthetics were invented to replace.

The Hamptons Material Challenge: Salt, Humidity, Time

The East End imposes specific demands on sustainable luxury materials that other luxury markets do not face. Salt air corrodes metals that perform perfectly in Palm Beach. Summer humidity followed by winter desiccation creates expansion-contraction cycles that stress certain woods. The seasonal occupancy pattern of most Hamptons homes means materials must withstand months of dormancy followed by intense summer use.

Chase’s desert practice did not directly prepare him for these conditions, but his underlying philosophy translated perfectly. Materials that tell the truth also reveal environmental stress honestly, and honest materials can be maintained. A brass fitting that shows salt exposure can be restored with a simple cleaning. An engineered alternative that shows similar damage requires replacement because the coating failure exposes a substrate that was never meant to be seen.

D&J Concepts’ 25 years of East End experience have produced a regional material specification database that accounts for these conditions. Marine-grade stainless for exterior hardware. Teak and ipe for outdoor applications where cedar would deteriorate. Exterior lime plaster formulated for freeze-thaw resistance. These specifications represent the intersection of Chase’s material philosophy with the Hamptons’ specific environmental reality.

Beyond Sustainability: Materials That Mean Something

The deepest insight in Chase’s material philosophy was not environmental. It was emotional. He understood that the surfaces people touch daily become repositories of memory. A dining table that records twenty years of family dinners in its patina is not damaged. It is enriched. A stone floor that shows the path most frequently walked is not worn. It is personalized.

This emotional dimension separates genuine sustainable luxury materials practice from the marketing version. Sustainability as a selling point produces materials that are defensible. Sustainability as a design philosophy, Chase’s version, produces materials that are meaningful. The difference matters in the room, where inhabitants live with their surfaces daily rather than evaluating them annually.

Elle Decor has noted the growing demand for what its editors call “material character” in luxury residential design. Clients increasingly request surfaces that show evidence of how they were made and how they have been used. This is Chase’s legacy in its purest form: the conviction that honest materials create honest rooms, and honest rooms create better lives.

Specify Materials That Last

D&J Concepts continues Steve Chase’s material philosophy through every project. The Method of Visual Clarity shows clients exactly how their material selections will look and age before construction begins. Contact the team for features, partnerships, or advertising. Visit polohamptons.com for event tickets and sponsorships.

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