Kitchen of the Week: A Vipp Modular Kitchen in the Hamptons

Vipp modular steel home pro kitchen design Hamptons, NY

This story begins with a bin: In 1939 Danish metalsmith Holger Nielsen created a pedal-operated steel trashcan for wife Marie’s hair salon. The tidy, air-tight invention attracted admiration and Nielsen went on to spend his career selling his design, which he dubbed the Vipp (translation: “tilt”), to hospitals, labs, and doctors’ offices.

Two generations later, Vipp is still a family operation; it’s run by Nielsen’s daughter, Jette Egelund; her son, Kasper, now CEO; and daughter, Sofie, who with her husband, Frank Christensen Egelund, is in charge of US operations. And though the company is still best known for its bin—we singled it out in the Remodelista book in our roundup of 100 favorite everyday objects—the Egelunds have gone on to apply the Vipp’s elegant industrial aesthetic to a range of household essentials, from shelving to soap dispensers and even a modular kitchen, all in steel. Join us for a look at the first Vipp kitchen to land in these parts, a summery design in New York’s Hamptons.

Photography courtesy of Vipp.

Indoor-outdoor kitchen by Vipp in the Hamptons, NY — Above: A foliage-framed sliding glass main entrance opens to an expansive kitchen-living room in a converted potato barn used as a country house.

It belongs to the owner of a much buzzed-about fashion brand who asked not to be named, but explained: “I was on the lookout for a freestanding, modular kitchen and the Google results turned my attention to Vipp.” He took a leap of faith and placed the order.

“Our kitchen is based on everything we’ve learned about metalwork since Vipp was founded,” says in-house chief designer Morten Bo Jensen. “To us, a kitchen is a tool and not decoration. Our ambition was to bring functional principles and industrial aesthetics into the private home.” Sofie Egelund notes that though it’s shown here in white, black is the only color currently being produced.

The Vipp kitchen is composed of three modules—a wall module, island, and tall module (not used here)—each of which break down into units, so the design can be tailored to individual spaces.

Vipp steel open shelves in a modular steel kitchen by Vipp — Above: The integrated sink and pullout faucet are also Vipp designs, sold only as part of the kitchen, but many of the accessories, including the Vipp Shelves of white powder-coated steel, $299, and the one-hand Vipp Soap Dispenser, $139, are available à la carte.

The white and gray porcelain Coffee Cups, two for $39, and Bowls, two for $49, are also Vipp designs, made in collaboration with ceramicist Annemette Kissow: See our posts Vipp Comes to the Table and Steal This Look: A Summer Scandi Table. The chrome toaster is a Dualit.