HOT STUFF: Snider and his dog, Chase, enjoy hanging out in the backyard, which has a hot tub with its own waterfall. (Lizzy Sullivan)
ALL IN THE DEE-TAILS: Snider and his wife didn’t hold back when it came to designing and furnishing their dining room. (Lizzy Sullivan)
Twisted Sister’s biggest hit was the 1984 rock anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Listening to the band’s lead singer, Dee Snider, talk about how his wife, Suzette, steered every aspect of the construction of their 6,000-square-foot East Setauket, LI, house, it sounds like Suzette made the song her motto when it came to dealing with builders.
“Her family’s in construction. She swings a hammer, she uses a saw and she’s a mean-ass spackler,” Snider says. “[The builders] had this little blonde calling them out on the wood they were choosing and the grade of lumber, and they’re going, ‘What the f – – k? You’re not supposed to know this s – – t!’ ”
A hair-and-makeup artist with a fashion-design degree from FIT, Suzette loved the Victorian home’s floor plan, but also knew she’d want drastic changes.
Beginning with the foundation, which she made the builders re-dig after finding that it faced the wrong spot, she was deeply involved in every aspect of the two-year construction of the three-level, six-bedroom, 3 1/2- bathroom house.
She had two fireplaces installed, on opposite ends of the house, instead of just the one in the initial plans. She transformed a proposed sitting area atop the second-floor staircase into a catwalk and switched the locations of a bathroom and closet.
When the kitchen was built, she decided she didn’t like the color of the cabinets but was told she’d have to wait until she moved in to change them. She took a different approach.
“That weekend, my wife breaks in,” says Snider, 57, who’s been married for 31 years. “She comes with her sander and her stain, and she redoes the cabinets. [The builders] come in on Monday, and they’re beside themselves. She says, ‘I broke into my own house and I stained my own cabinets. What are you gonna do? Arrest me?’ ”
Once the family moved in — the Sniders have four children, two still live at home — Suzette embarked on a 10-year design odyssey. She infused their home with a blend of marble, leopard print and ancient Roman influences, including a crackled, weathered look to the paint, furniture and curtains, and a painting on chiseled rock replicating a portion of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.
And she remained hands-on the whole time, sewing the curtains, hand-painting the moldings and designing the 20-foot-high, three-level mantel for their living-room fireplace.
As we discuss that room’s ancient aura, Snider turns his attention to a stone bust of a woman displayed on a pedestal next to the fireplace. And he has an epiphany.
“Beatrice was the start of this whole thing,” he says, referring to the bust. “This was inherited from Suzette’s grandmother. She grew up with this piece in her house, and we’ve had it since we started living together. I’m just realizing, looking at it, that the Greco-Roman styling and coloration all stem from Beatrice.”
The Sniders’ acre of outdoor space, meanwhile, is less Roman than suburban American, with a basketball court, trampoline, a swimming pool with two waterfalls and a 15-person hot tub with another waterfall. There’s also a waterfall in front of the house. Waterfalls, it turns out, have a special resonance for Snider.
“I grew up in suburbia, and I hated suburbia. It felt suffocating,” says Snider, who notes in his recent memoir, “Shut Up and Give Me the Mic,” that he grew up in the Baldwin and Freeport areas of Long Island.
“Every morning, I could hear a waterfall. I never saw a waterfall, but I could hear rushing water. And I’d sit out every morning on the front porch, listening to the waterfall. One day my father came out, saw me with this stupid half-smile on my face, and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m listening to the waterfall.’ And he goes, ‘That’s not a waterfall, you idiot. That’s the highway.’ I was shattered. So in my house, there were gonna be waterfalls.”
The lower floor is Snider’s man cave — with pool, foosball and air-hockey tables and an arcade machine with popular ’80s video games — plus the office/studio that serves as the home base for Snider’s syndicated “House of Hair” radio show.
Snider, who joined local glam rockers Twisted Sister in 1976, has kept himself busy since leaving the band — known for its wild outfits, makeup and hits like “I Wanna Rock” — in 1987. He’s played with a variety of bands, ventured into film (writing and starring in 1998’s “Strangeland”), Broadway (with a star turn in “Rock of Ages”) and reality TV — “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice” is filming now.
And after more than a decade apart, he started playing with the reunited Twister Sister on tours and recordings. “House of Hair” has been on the air for 15 years, and the office/studio walls and shelves house items like the bone Snider held on the cover of Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry” album, along with various swords, knives and skulls. There’s also an issue of “The Incredible Hulk” comic book that was written by his eldest son, Jesse.
“That was one of my proudest moments,” Snider says. “I’m a fanboy, and he dedicated the issue to me. So, I go into a store like I did when I was a kid, and buy a Hulk comic that my son had written. To me, that was the greatest thing in the world.”
Or, considering the two-plus hours Snider spends gushing about his wife’s brilliance in designing the family home, perhaps it’s tied for greatest.
“I can’t give Suzette enough credit,” he says. “She’s really responsible for creating something beautiful, and people should see it.”
DEE SNIDER’S
FAVORITE THINGS
* The hot tub
* The back porch
* The waterfall out front
* His office/studio where he records the syndicated “House of Hair” radio show
* The living room with its 20-foot-high fireplace mantel