Some New Yorkers don’t go above 14th Street in Manhattan. Not Todd Snyder.
Mr. Snyder, 58, the American luxury menswear designer, spends his days within a five-block radius immediately north of Madison Square Park.
When he moved to New York City from Iowa in 1992, Mr. Snyder honed his craft by working for Ralph Lauren, Gap, Old Navy and eventually J. Crew, where he helped update the men’s line and designed the popular Ludlow suit.
In 2011, he launched his own line with modernized American classics, crafted from premium Italian and Japanese fabrics.
“For a lot of men, fashion is a four-letter word,” Mr. Snyder said. “My whole goal has been trying to figure out how to simplify fashion for men.”
He recently spent a Sunday with The New York Times as he and his team assembled styles for a lookbook, “American Form,” set to be released during New York Fashion Week.
Congratulations, you’ve reached the final day of the Brain Health Challenge! Today, we’re asking you to do a few things that might feel a bit out of left field — like getting your blood pressure checked.
No, it isn’t as fun as playing Pips, but experts say it’s one of the most important things you can do for your brain. That’s because heart health and brain health are intrinsically linked.
High blood pressure, in particular, can damage brain cells, and it’s a significant risk factor for stroke and dementia. When blood pressure is too high, it places stress on the walls of arteries in the brain. Over time, that added stress can cause the blood vessel walls to thicken, obstructing blood flow. In other cases, the increased pressure causes the artery walls to thin and leak blood into the brain.
These changes to the blood vessels can sometimes cause a large stroke to occur. More commonly, the damage leads to micro-strokes and micro-hemorrhages, which cause fewer immediate problems and often go unnoticed. But if someone has hypertension for years or decades, these injuries can build up, and the person may start to experience cognitive impairment.
High blood pressure “is known as a silent killer for lots of reasons,” said Dr. Shyam Prabhakaran, the chair of neurology at the University of Chicago. “It doesn’t cause you any symptoms until it does.”
Because the damage accumulates over many years, experts say that managing blood pressure in midlife matters most for brain health. Hypertension can be addressed with medication or lifestyle changes, as directed by your doctor. But the first thing you need to do is know your numbers. If your blood pressure comes back higher than 120/80, it’s important to take it seriously, Dr. Prabhakaran said.
While you’re at it, there are a few other aspects of your physical health that you should check on.
Your eyes and ears are two of them. Hearing and vision loss have both been shown to increase the risk of dementia. Experts think that with less sensory information coming in to stimulate the brain, the regions that process hearing and vision can start to atrophy. What’s more, people with sensory loss often withdraw or are left out of social interactions, further depriving them of cognitive stimulation.
Oral health can also affect your brain health. Research has found a connection between regular flossing and reduced odds of having a stroke. That may be because good oral health can help to reduce inflammation in the body. The bacteria that cause gum disease have also been tied to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.
And have you gotten your shingles vaccine? There is mounting evidence that it’s a powerful weapon for protecting against dementia. One study found that it lowered people’s odds of developing the condition by as much as 20 percent.
To wrap up this challenge, we want you to schedule a few medical appointments that benefit your brain, as well as your body.
After five days of feeding, exercising and challenging your brain, you are well on your way to better cognitive health. Thanks for joining me this week, and keep up the good habits!
Experts think this is partly thanks to cognitive reserve: Basically, the more brain power you’ve built up over the years, the more you can stand to lose before you experience impairment. Researchers still don’t agree on how to measure cognitive reserve, but one theory is that better connections between different brain regions corresponds with more cognitive reserve.
To build up these connections, you need to stimulate your brain, said Dr. Joel Salinas, a neurologist at NYU Langone Health and the founder and chief medical officer of the telehealth platform Isaac Health. To do that, try an activity that is “challenging enough that it requires some effort but not so challenging that you don’t want to do it anymore,” he said.
Speaking a second language has been shown to be good for cognition, as has playing a musical instrument, visiting a museum and doing handicrafts like knitting or quilting. Reading is considered a mentally stimulating hobby, and experts say you’ll get an even bigger benefit if you join a book club to make it social. Listen to a podcast to learn something new, or, better yet, attend a lecture in person at a local college or community center, said Dr. Zaldy Tan, the director of the Memory and Healthy Aging Program at Cedars-Sinai. That adds a social component, plus the extra challenge of having to navigate your way there, he said.
A fewstudies have found that playing board games like chess can be good for your brain; the same goes for doing crossword puzzles. It’s possible that other types of puzzles, like those you find in brain teaser books or from New York Times Games, can also offer a cognitive benefit.
But there’s a catch: To get the best brain workout, the activity should not only be challenging but also new. If you do “Wordle every day, it’s like well, then you’re very, very good at Wordle, and the Wordle part of your brain has grown to be fantastic,” said Dr. Linda Selwa, a clinical professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. “But the rest of your mind might still need work.”
So play a game you’re not used to playing, Dr. Selwa said. “The novelty seems to be what’s driving brain remodeling and growth.”
Today, we want you to push yourself out of your cognitive comfort zone. Check out an online lecture or visit a museum with your challenge partner. Or try your hand at a new game, below. Share what novel thing you did today in the comments, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 5.
Today, you’re going to do perhaps the single best thing for your brain.
When I asked neurologists about their top behaviors for brain health, they all stressed the importance of physical activity.
“Exercise is top, No. 1, when we’re thinking about the biggest bang for your buck,” said Dr. Gregg Day, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic.
Numerous studies have shown that people who exercise regularly tend to perform better on attention, memory and executive functioning tests. There can be a small cognitive boost immediately after a workout, and the effects are sustained if people exercise consistently. And while staying active can’t guarantee you won’t develop dementia, over the long term, it is associated with a lower risk of it.
Researchers think that moving your muscles benefits your brain in part because of special signaling molecules called exerkines. During and after a workout, your muscles, fat and other organs release these molecules into the bloodstream, some of which make their way up to the brain. There, those exerkines go to work, helping to facilitate the growth of new connections between neurons, the repair of brain cells and, possibly, the birth of new neurons.
Exercise also appears to improve blood flow in the brain. That ramps up the delivery of good things to brain cells, like oxygen, glucose and those amazing exerkines. And it helps remove more bad things, namely toxic proteins, like amyloid, that can build up and damage brain cells, increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s.
All of the changes brought on by exercise are “essentially allowing your brain to age more slowly than if you’re physically inactive,” said Kirk Erickson, the chair of neuroscience at the AdventHealth Research Institute.
The benefits are particularly pronounced in the hippocampus, a region critical for learning and memory. In older adults, the hippocampus shrinks 1 to 2 percent a year, and it is one of the main areas affected by Alzheimer’s. Researchers think physical activity helps to offset some of that loss.
The best exercise you can do for your brain is the one you’ll do consistently, so find something that you enjoy and that fits easily into your life.
Walking is one option; two neurologists I spoke to said they got their exercise in by walking at least part of the way to their offices. Recent research suggests that just a few thousand steps a day can reduce the risk of dementia. It’s important to get your heart rate up, though, so “walk as though you’re trying to get somewhere on time,” said Dr. Linda Selwa, a clinical professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Or you could try swimming, cycling, Pilates, weight lifting, yoga, pickleball, dancing, gardening — any type of physical exertion can be beneficial.
If the thought of working out feels like a drag, try pairing it with something else you enjoy doing, like listening to an audiobook. This is a trick that Katherine Milkman, a professor who studies habits at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, calls “temptation bundling.”
For Day 3, we’re asking you to spend at least 20 minutes exercising for your brain. Go for a walk with your accountability partner if they’re nearby. (If not, call them and do a walk-and-talk.) Or let us find you a new workout to try, using the tool below. As usual, we can all meet in the comments to catch up and check in.
Welcome to Day 2 of the Brain Health Challenge. Today, we’re talking about food.
Your brain is an energy hog. Despite comprising about 2 percent of the average person’s body mass, it consumes roughly 20 percent of the body’s energy. In other words, what you use to fuel yourself matters for brain health.
So what foods are best for your brain?
In a nine-year study of nearly 1,000 older adults, researchers at Rush University in Chicago found that people who ate more of nine particular types of food — berries, leafy greens, other vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, poultry and olive oil — and who ate less red meat, butter and margarine, cheese, sweet treats and fried food had slower cognitive decline.
Based on these findings, the researchers developed the MIND diet.
Experts think the foods included in the MIND diet are especially good for the brain because they contain certain macro and micronutrients.
Berries and leafy greens, for example, are rich in polyphenols and other antioxidants, said Jennifer Ventrelle, a dietitian at Rush and a co-author of “The Official Mind Diet.” Many of these compounds can cross the blood-brain barrier and help to fight inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which can damage cells and are linked to dementia.
Nuts and fatty fishes, like salmon and sardines, contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for building the insulating sheaths that surround the nerve fibers that carry information from one brain cell to another.
Whole grains and beans both contain a hefty dose of fiber, which feeds the good microbes in the gut. Those microbes produce byproducts called short-chain fatty acids that experts think can influence brain health via the gut-brain axis.
You don’t have to revamp your whole diet to get these nutrients. Instead, think about “MIND-ifying” whatever you already tend to eat, said Dr. Joel Salinas, a neurologist at NYU Langone Health and the founder and chief medical officer of the telehealth platform Isaac Health. For instance, add a handful of nuts or berries to your breakfast.
Today’s activity will help you MIND-ify your own meals. Share your choices with your accountability partner and in the comments, and I’ll discuss the ways I’m adjusting my diet, too. For added inspiration, check out these MIND-approved recipes from New York Times Cooking.
Welcome to the Brain Health Challenge! I’m Dana Smith, a reporter at The New York Times, and I’ll be your guide.
To live a healthy life, it’s crucial to have a healthy brain. In the short term, it keeps you sharp and firing on all cylinders. In the long term, it can reduce your risk of cognitive decline, dementia and stroke.
Practicing basic healthy behaviors, like eating nutritious food and getting regular exercise, is the best way to enhance your brain power and protect the longevity of your neurons. These types of lifestyle habits can benefit the brain at any age. And while they won’t guarantee that you’ll never develop dementia or another brain disease, severalclinicaltrials have shown that they can improve cognition or slow decline.
Every day this week, you’ll do an activity that’s good for your brain, and we’ll dig into the science behind why it works. Some of these activities can provide a small immediate cognitive benefit, but the bigger reward comes from engaging in them consistently over time. So along with the neuroscience lessons, we’ll include a few tips to help you turn these actions into lasting habits.
To keep you accountable, we’re encouraging you to complete this challenge with a friend. If you don’t have a challenge buddy, no problem: We’re also turning the comments section into one big support group.
There are so many fascinating ways your daily behaviors affect your brain. Take sleep, for example.
Lots ofstudies have shown that getting a good night’s rest (seven to eight hours) is associated with better memory and other cognitive abilities. That’s because sleep, especially REM sleep, is when your brain transfers short-term memories — things you learned or experienced during the day — into long-term storage.
Sleep is also when your brain does its daily housekeeping. While you rest, the brain’s glymphatic system kicks into high gear, clearing out abnormal proteins and other molecular garbage, including the protein amyloid, which is a major contributor to Alzheimer’s disease. A buildup of amyloid is one reason experts think that people who routinely get less sleep have a higher risk of dementia.
What other behaviors play a big role in brain health? For today’s activity, we’re going to test your knowledge with a quiz. Share your score with your accountability partner and in the comments below — I’ll be in there too, cheering you on.
With America’s industrial revolution in the rearview, the government begins promoting homemaking to young women as an exciting new science — “just as useful to maid as to mistress.”
Meanwhile, kitchens are adopting technology like mass-produced metal stoves, the early iterations of refrigerators (just iceboxes, at first) and electrification. The electric kitchen leads to the first generation of countertop tools including automatic toasters and stand mixers. A century later, these appliances have barely changed.
Female students prepare food in a home economics class at the University of Maryland in 1926.
“Is not housework as worthwhile studying as the shoveling of coal? Is not housekeeping the biggest, the most essential industry of all?”Bulletin of the American School of Home Economics, 1915
1920
The Hoosier Manufacturing Company publishes “The Kitchen Plan Book,” which offers readers 50blueprints for kitchens designed by “leading architects and architectural draughtsmen of America.” They incorporate the new technology of modular, mass-produced cabinetry. To this point, kitchen storage meant free-standing furniture, simple shelves, or cabinets built on-site by a carpenter, said Brent Hull, a Texas-based builder who specializes in the history of millwork, especially in the kitchen.
“The Kitchen Plan Book” presented some futuristic ideas for the room’s design, promising to “simplify the work which a woman must do in her kitchen.”
1926
Architects begin applying the lens of domestic science to the kitchen, with many inspired by the work of the famed Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Her compact, sleek, function-driven “Frankfurt Kitchen” feels like a forerunner of IKEA, said Alexis Barr, an expert in kitchen design history at the New York School of Interior Design.
“She’s actually labeling some of those drawers, so it’s sort of set out for the homeowner, like, “This is where you’re going to put your flour; this is where you’re going to put your bread,’” Ms. Barr said. “And she’s integrating that fitted kitchen and the components of it. And it’s all sort of predicated around the idea that you’re going to have this certain set of appliances.”
The Frankfurt Kitchen still captivates kitchen designers nearly a century later.
Mark Phillips/Alamy
American kitchens are also becoming more practically designed, with an ideal number of steps between the stove, sink and counters. Designers at the University of Illinois School of Architecture would refine this concept in the 1940s as a “work triangle,” a term still used by kitchen designers today.
The University of Illinois School of Architecture refined the concept of the kitchen “work triangle” in the 1940s. The term is still used to lay out kitchens today.
The University of Illinois Press
Your Ideal Kitchen
How connected should the kitchen be to the rest of the home?
1934
Kitchens are evolving, but most are still closed off from the rest of the home. Enter Frank Lloyd Wright, who designs what many believe to be the first open-concept kitchen for Malcolm and Nancy Willey, a middle-class couple in Minneapolis. Mrs. Willey wanted to cook and entertain at the same time, decades before the arrival of the open floor plan. The resulting room is still economical in terms of space and movement, but also sunlit and beautiful, connected by a half-wall and handsome picture windows to the home’s living spaces.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s open-concept design for a kitchen in Minneapolis, which allowed the homeowners to cook and entertain at the same time.
Hedrich Blessing Collection/Chicago History Museum, via Getty Images
1945
A rush of home-building and suburbanization emerges after World War II, as does the use of more processed design materials perfected in military applications. The company that makes Formica, for example, expands its line of kitchen countertops with new patterns and colors. Plywood manufacturing takes off.
Showing off our new purchases — “look at the latest convenience, look at my new stove” — becomes increasingly chic, said Mr. Hull. As a result, “the kitchen really transforms after 1950 into much more of a modern space.”
In the 1956 short film “Once Upon a Honeymoon, sponsored by Bell Telephone, a housewife serenades her dream kitchen.
“Just look under ‘plastics’ in the yellow-pages of your phone book for a nearby Formica fabricator. You can have beautiful Formica in your kitchen for only a few dollars a month.”1956 advertisement
1957
Amana unveils a bottom-freezer refrigerator, so owners no longer have to crouch all the way down to reach their produce drawers. The appliance brand, now owned by Whirlpool Corporation, had also invented the side-by-side refrigerator 10 years before. The new designs lead to new features, like through-the-door ice machines and French doors.
To this point, all fridges had come with the freezer on top, the simplest way to design a refrigerator, said Barry Burkan, a refrigerator expert and a dean at Apex Technical School in New York City. Top-freezer refrigerators benefit from warm air rising up to the freezer, where it gets cooled before sinking back down to cool the refrigerator. Move the freezer to the bottom or to the side, and things get more complicated.
Until the 1950s refrigerators came in just one style, with the freezer on top. Some models hid a door to the freezer inside the exterior door, to keep more cold air inside.
PhotoQuest, via Getty Images
Your Ideal Kitchen
I like the freezer of my refrigerator to be…
1963
Julia Child’s first TV show, “The French Chef,” introduces millions of Americans to French cooking, but also to her large, open, well-equipped, semiprofessional kitchen — including a massive Garland gas range, a peg board and Le Creuset pots and pans, all of which are now on view at the Smithsonian. Viewers don’t just want to cook like her, they want to own the products they see her use onscreen.
The show becomes such a fixture in the American imagination that it is still being parodied 15 years later by a bloody Dan Aykroyd on “Saturday Night Live.”
Julia Child became a household name after her TV show, “The French Chef,” made its debut in 1963. Her kitchen co-starred.
1978
General Electric Company manufactures an over-the-range microwave oven, freeing up counter space. It quickly becomes the visual centerpiece of many American kitchens.
In 1978, General Electric created the first over-the-range microwave, which combined a microwave and a range hood. The innovation altered the aesthetic of many American kitchens.
Harold M. Lambert/Getty Images
“Microwaves had gotten more and more popular, but everyone noticed they had gotten bigger and bigger, and taking up more and more counter space.”Jim Hoetker, a former industrial designer at G.E.
Your Ideal Kitchen
1983
What do personal computers have to do with kitchens? They become a regular presence in the “the command center,” the new kitchen-home-office combination sweeping the country, said Lauren Tolles, who founded the Michigan custom cabinetry company Maison Birmingham.
“Back then, you would have had your landline sitting on it. You would have a stack of mail, the kids’ homework,” Ms. Tolles said. “The concept was successful, because the mom didn’t have to be out of the kitchen and away from her family anywhere.”
Compact personal computers make their way into the kitchen, as seen in this 1977 ad for the Apple II. Interior designers respond with built-in office spaces nicknamed “the command center.”
Apple
1990
As suburbs and houses continue to grow, the term “McMansions” makes its way into the vernacular. Kitchens, a practical space up through the 1950s, morph into a “decorative space,” said Mr. Hull. Cabinets grow more luxurious, ceilings grow taller, and stoves with braggable brand names like Viking or Wolf become more mainstream. “That’s really when it becomes kind of the most expensive room in the house,” he said.
Your Ideal Kitchen
How do you feel about kitchen islands?
1999
The Manhattan restaurant Pastis, designed by Ian McPheely and the restaurateur Keith McNally, is slathered wall-to-wall in reclaimed, glazed white subway tiles. The tiles are there (and in subways) because they’re extremely durable, easy to apply in many patterns, and easy to clean, said Mr. McPheely, now a director at Paisley Design in New York City. But they also strike an emotional chord, one reason they are now ubiquitous in American kitchens: “It gives you an instant kind of sense of history,” he said.
The Manhattan restaurant Pastis, designed by Ian McPheely and Keith McNally, was clad both inside and out in reclaimed white subway tiles. Now they’re everywhere else, too.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Your Ideal Kitchen
2005
New homes with the most up-to-date kitchen plans — large, open to the rest of the home, and increasingly central — are emerging across the country, at the tail end of a housing building boom that began in the late 1990s.
“All of a sudden, it was like this open-concept kitchen where you just had, like, literally one room,” said Aurora Farewell, whose eponymous architecture and interior design firm is based in Connecticut. Even with renovations to older homes, she said, “almost always it’s a conversation about, ‘How do you make that kitchen feel central?’”
Today, most newer homes have kitchens that are fully open, and increasingly central.
Neil Podoll/Shutterstock
2011
“The Property Brothers” reality show, starring Jonathan and Drew Scott, becomes a breakout success for HGTV. The show, along with the advent of social media and affordable home-furnishing retailers like IKEA, has a huge impact on home renovations.
“They’ve really made design and kind of D.I.Y. projects accessible to the masses,” said Ms. Tolles. “And there’s so much information out there on TV, on the internet. You walk into the IKEA store, they have planners. They do make it easy to do.”
The grand opening of New York City’s first IKEA store in 2008, in Brooklyn. Ready-to-assemble cabinets and other D.I.Y. innovations made kitchen renovations more accessible and affordable.
Mark Lennihan/Associated Press
“Showing them that you can make a beautiful dream home well within your budget, you don’t always have to get a turnkey ready place — that’s the biggest thing about our show that people love.”Drew Scott, co-host of “Property Brothers,” September 2011
2012
Imported cabinets made from lighter-weight, affordable engineered wood — flat-packed and shipped ready to assemble — are taking off in the U.S. “The quality of a lot of those are not that great, but the price point is so reasonable,” said Ms. Viola. “If you watch any of those HGTV shows and you see someone that says, ‘Yeah, well, we got this complete kitchen done for $10,000,’ you know it’s because they spent $1,000 on that flat-pack cabinetry that’s going to last maybe a year.”
Your Ideal Kitchen
I want my kitchen storage …
2016
The Japanese clutter consultant Marie Kondo is so popular that her name becomes a verb. Across the country, companies that focus on organizing emerge to help us deal with the storage of too much stuff — one consequence of a kitchen that’s open to the rest of the house, said Ms. Tolles: “In a small house, it’s nice to have that openness. But then you literally have just lost like an entire wall of storage.”
One consequence of having a kitchen that’s open to the rest of the house is losing walls, which help provide more storage space.
Getty Images
Your Ideal Kitchen
I prefer a kitchen that is…
2020
As Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns begin in March, Americans are working from home, often in the kitchen. Children attend school online, often in the kitchen.
“It really was during Covid that people realized that the open concept is loud,” said Sarah Snouffer, the founder of Third Street Architecture in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to find enough space. It’s hard to have multiple people working or learning in the same space.”
The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to rethink how we used our kitchens. For many, they became classrooms for home-schooling.
John Moore/Getty Images
“My kids are now teenagers, and with quarantine home-schooling in full effect, we’re once again all sitting around the same table at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with fate dishing out extra portions of frayed nerves and financial uncertainty.”Hugh Garvey, Sunset Magazine, April 2020
2023
The pandemic is easing, but pressure on usable space in the kitchen remains high. Shopping and cooking habits change, said Wendy Trunz, a partner in the New York City home organization company Jane’s Addiction. More people are buying in bulk and cooking at home. And many still don’t go to an office. “Some never really went back because they didn’t have to, and they kind of took over a little part of the kitchen, or a part of a dining room,” said Ms. Trunz.
Post-pandemic, many people still buy in bulk and cook more meals at home, requiring more space for storage.
Julia Gartland for The New York Times
2025
Kitchen designers are adapting, with warmer, more comfortable designs replacing sleek and streamlined. Kitchen islands expand, or multiply, as people want flexible all-day seating and places to plug in laptops and stash more cooking appliances and servingware.
Ms. Farewell is creating more privacy without closing off the room completely, through additions like pocket doors or framed openings that provide a sense of a separation as needed. “I do not necessarily think that the kitchen of the future, or necessarily even the kitchen of today, is an open kitchen,” she said.
Chef Andrew Zimmern, wearing a blue chore jacket, stands in front of his kitchen island.
Ask the chef Andrew Zimmern when he arrived in the Twin Cities, and he’ll respond with unsparing detail: “The night of Jan. 28, 1992. I had tried to kill myself four or five days earlier, and I was at the end of my rope, a horrible user of people and taker of things and an active addict and alcoholic.”
Chef Andrew Zimmern, wearing a blue chore jacket, stands in front of his kitchen island.
By then, he had no home, so he’d found room at a flophouse in New York where he woke up days after “eating a fistful of barbiturates” and drinking a bottle of vodka, he said. He managed to call a friend and try something new: “Ask for help.”
Chef Andrew Zimmern, wearing a blue chore jacket, stands in front of his kitchen island.
Help arrived in the form of a ticket to Minneapolis and a spot at the treatment center now known as the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Mr. Zimmern, 64, has remained in the Twin Cities ever since. “The recovering community here and the food community here loved me up at a time when I wasn’t able to love myself,” he said. “Without those people, I wouldn’t have anything.”
Dana Perino, dressed in pink pants, a pink and white shirt and silver shoes sits at a desk in her beach home. The bright green wallpaper behind her displays a plant motif.
Soon after Dana Perino joined the Fox News Channel in July of 2011 to be one of the five hosts on the talk show “The Five” her boss asked about her off-camera summer plans.
Dana Perino, dressed in pink pants, a pink and white shirt and silver shoes sits at a desk in her beach home. The bright green wallpaper behind her displays a plant motif.
“And I remember thinking ‘I don’t think I can afford a summer plan in New York,’” said Ms. Perino, who was the White House press secretary for the last 16 months of George W. Bush’s administration.
Dana Perino, dressed in pink pants, a pink and white shirt and silver shoes sits at a desk in her beach home. The bright green wallpaper behind her displays a plant motif.
But in 2017, thanks to a sufficiently bulked-up bank account, she and her husband, Peter McMahon, the founder and CEO of a start-up that manufactures medical devices, had not just a summer plan, but a summer place — a newly acquired house in Bay Head, New Jersey. Without traffic, it was precisely one hour and six minutes from the couple’s primary residence on the west side of Manhattan.
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin pose for a photo in a kitchen.
Hidden from a main road in Amagansett, N.Y., Alec Baldwin’s farmhouse has been his refuge for three decades. The actor spent close to 10 years living alone, experiencing highs, like the numerous accolades for his comedic chops on “30 Rock,” and lows, like the messy breakup of his first marriage.
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin pose for a photo in a kitchen.
In 2012, he married the yoga instructor Hilaria Baldwin and they had a child and then another and another until they had a brood of seven, plus Mr. Baldwin’s oldest child from his first marriage to the actor Kim Basinger.
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin pose for a photo in a kitchen.
The three-story summer home for one on Long Island’s East End had to grow, and so did Mr. Baldwin, 67.
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin pose for a photo in a kitchen.
“This was Alec’s safe place for a long time before he met me,” said Ms. Baldwin, 41. “A place he would come during very difficult times in his life: his divorce, a custody battle, everything. So it has been a piece-by-piece process learning how to come together and create something here, which I think is normal in any relationship.”