Get On Board: Local Artists Design One-of-a-Kind Surfboards for Holiday House Hamptons

When it comes to supporting breast cancer-related causes, Holiday House founder Iris Dankner has made it her mission to get everyone on board. This year, quite literally, with an auction of one-of-a-kind surfboards turned art at Holiday House Hamptons.

“I always try to bring the fun back into fundraisers,” says Dankner of the surfboard auction. “It’s very beachy, very Hamptons, and a way we can engage local artists.”

Dankner founded Holiday House in 2008 as an intersection of her two passions: interior design and eradicating breast cancer. An interior design showhouse, Holiday House was the first of its kind to benefit breast cancer research. For Dankner, it’s personal. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and has since devoted herself to a number of organizations working toward a cure.

As an art lover who graduated from Carnegie Mellon School of Painting and Photography and founded her own successful interior design firm, ID Creations by Iris Dankner, she is a respected veteran in the design world, as well.

“It’s a very contemporary house, which had perfect walls for art, almost like a gallery,” she says of this year’s Holiday House Hamptons, making its post-pandemic return in Bridgehampton. Its blank canvas walls inspired Danker to make its focus art, eventually leading to the surfboard project.

The 25 boards represent different themes and mediums, all designed by local artists hand-picked by Dankner. “Everybody wanted to get on board and do good through their creative, artistic work,” she recalls.

“They are all so different and that’s what’s incredible,” Dankner says of the boards. “You have photography and paintings. You have one that’s made out of a collage of sand. Some are abstract, some are more realistic. One has a fish!”

That’s not the only art on display at Holiday House Hamptons, either. They’ve turned its lower level into a gallery, with changing exhibits. The next exhibit opening soon is called “Contemporary Blue Art,” curated by Mago. The showhouse is open through August 27, and proceeds from its admission fee go toward the Breast Cancer Research Fund.

As for the surfboard auction, which kicks off with an event on August 11, the proceeds benefit the Ellen Hermanson Foundation. Dankner says she wanted to do something for a local charity.

“Julie Ratner is a dear friend, I think what she has done for women on the East End is incredible,” says Dankner. Ratner co-founded the Ellen Hermanson Foundation in 1996 alongside her sister, Emily Levin, after losing their younger sister Ellen to breast cancer. “She has been so supportive and helped to build the Southampton Hospital Breast Center.

The whole circle of local artists helping local women, supporting a local charity, made sense,” says Dankner.

The Get on Board Art Night & Auction benefitting the Ellen Hermanson Foundation kicks off with an event on Friday, August 11 from 5–7 p.m. at Holiday House Hamptons, located at 279 Mitchell Lane, Bridgehampton. The auction itself will take place on CharityBuzz and be open for three weeks. Holiday House Hamptons is open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m.–6 p.m., through August 27.

For tickets and more information, visit holidayhousehamptons.com.