Hello KDH Readers~ Check Out This Fun Feature On KDH & Dr. Kot In Hamptons Magazine!
Mark Kot and Kelli Delaney Live the Hamptons Life
BY JEFFREY SLONIM
Mark Kot, MD, wearing Ralph Lauren, and Kelli Delaney in a Tracy Feith dress
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| At the cottage on the Great Peconic Bay, the couple loves to take the kayaks out at sunset | |
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| Delaney completely gutted the formerly brick-red master bath, adding bead board, moldings, a Carrara marble vanity and a chandelier and painting it wedding-veil white |
In Royal Pains, the USA Network medical series set on the East End, Mark Feuerstein plays a doctor who treats high-end patients. In real life, Mark R. Kot, considered one of the finest medical diagnosticians in the Hamptons, actually does minister to the ills of an East End clientele that includes the rich and famous. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Virginia School of Medicine, the real-deal urgent-care MD worked in the emergency room at Southampton Hospital for nine years before founding his popular Southampton Urgent Medical Care practice in 2003.
Locals appreciate Kot for his medical acumen—and his rugged good looks. In his spare time, the good doctor collects fine art and has an eye for beauty, as evidenced by his historic farmhouse and his lovely fiancée, Kelli Delaney, founder of kdhamptons.com, which she calls “the luxury lifestyle diary of the Hamptons.”
The match sparked on a blind date. Then they discovered they share a similar outlook on life. Kot, after 16 years as a Southampton doctor, and Delaney, a Condé Nast fashion veteran (Allure, Glamour) and a former designer and president of the fashion line Members Only, are a self-described Green Acres-style pair who both chose fresh air over city life.
“I had Googled pictures of her, but they didn’t do her justice,” he says. “She arrived on the blind date in stiletto heels and white denim jeans… and I knew.”
“[I was wearing a] Calypso St. Barth top,” she recalls. “When I walked up to the porch of his house, I couldn’t believe it—he’s so good-looking.”
Kot’s stately 1887 Victorian farmhouse with lush gardens, in Water Mill, is now their full-time residence, which they share with his 12-year-old daughter, Lily. The house was recently pictured in a book about the area’s founding farmers. Delaney quickly gave the home a luxe tweak. “His style is traditional,” she says. “I wanted to mix in some contemporary style.”
According to her plan, the couple would demolish and renovate four bathrooms “with a pedestal tub [in the master bathroom] and marble,” she says. “I wanted to keep the feel of a Victorian farmhouse,” says Kot. “But Kelli brightened up the rooms.”
At their getaway, a beach cottage on Peconic Bay, Delaney had free rein. She says she wanted to start there with a fresh, open space and began by emptying it. “I literally had someone take away everything,” she says. Within three weeks, she had completely redecorated the cottage using local design resources. “I love to get pieces from Ruby Beets, from English Country Antiques and Home Furnishings in Bridgehampton, and from Black Swan Antiques,” she says. “My best-kept secret is James Maguire Antiques in Hampton Bays.”
The farmhouse, named Maple Shade because of the three 100-year-old maple trees on the property, was the site of the couple’s engagement dinner last summer. Kot’s daughter, Lily, helped set the scene
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| Delaney (wearing Calypso St. Barth) and Kot, in J. McLaughlin, walk over to the The Beach Hut for mussels and live music during the week |
Kot, meanwhile, has a soft spot for “seascapes and landscapes” by several 19th-century artists. Among them: Walter Granville Smith, a famed illustrator forHarper’s and Scribner’s; Harrison Bird Brown, a Portland, Maine, native who was known for his marine subjects; Richard Hayley Lever, an Australian-American who favored harbors and seascapes; and New Yorker Arthur Hoeber, who painted pastoral landscapes. Kot also collects works by living artists, including the Hopperesque paintings of Miriam Dougenis, from Sag Harbor.
Both Delaney and Kot have a deep appreciation for nature and enjoy kayaking on Peconic Bay. Kot introduced Delaney to Shelter Island’s Mashomack Preserve, where they love doing the 10-mile hike trail—further cementing her transformation into a ruralist. “One third of the island is a nature preserve,” says Delaney. “It curves around the coast with private beaches and amazing birds.”
These days Delaney gardens at the cottage, but the master landscaper of the twosome is Kot, who cares for the flowers and greenery back at the farmhouse. “He sees 70 to 80 patients a day during the summer season,” says Delaney. “And it’s unbelievable what he still does with annuals and perennials. It’s as if Marders [a garden shop and landscape service in Bridgehampton] was here every day.” Kot has his ways. For instance: “You’ll have a better bloom if you deadhead your flowers,” he advises.
At his medical facility, located on the corner where Route 27 makes a bend at Southampton, Kot encounters every emergency imaginable. He often removes fishhooks from hands and legs, but disasters do strike. On one occasion, a school of bluefish attacked local surfers. “It was a feeding frenzy,” he says of the incident. “That can happen. Three of the victims came to my office.” Kot also sees golf casualties. “Just today,” he adds, “a caddie was hit by a golf ball and required 26 stitches in the face.”
Delaney, who followed Bonnie Fuller from Glamour to Wenner Media when Fuller founded Us Weekly magazine, created kdhamptons.com. “I chronicle the people who are the DNA of the Hamptons, not just celebrities,” she explains. “It’s not seasonal.”