A Writer's Summer House In The Hamptons

The 1960's through the 1990's were very different than today in the Hamptons. There was a different sort of society out there then. It was so much quieter. Now the Hamptons is a publicity society.


Truman Capote commissioned the two-story, flat-roofed, saltbox house near Gibson Beach in Sagaponack in 1961.
I bet he would fit in today. In the '70s he hobnobbed with Andy Warhol and the Rolling Stones and all the great society girls of the era. Who knows? If he were still alive today, he might have been at the center of P. Diddy's latest party, making little asides...taking it all in.

The house sits on six acres of land-including a bird sanctuary,
a long gravel driveway and endless vistas of scrub pine, wildflowers and potato fields

He liked to emphasize that he decorated the home himself: "For me it's a bore to use a decorator...I just don't care to have someone come in and tell me what I need to live with. I know."


You could hear the roar of the ocean, 200 yards away, from the screened-in porch. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room offered views to accompany the ocean soundtrack.
He liked to combine very elegant things with quirky bric-a-brac that caught his fancy. It was characteristically eclectic. The second-floor study is where Truman liked to read and write during the day. It was a comfortable room with comfy furniture and photographs and painted portraits.


He would remove his shoes upon entering the house, trying to preserve the highly-polished floor coated with blue boat-deck paint.

The blue floors brought a whimsy to the home’s stark lines -
I love how he painted all the wicker the same blue

According to Capote, he would rise at 7 AM and work for four hours, stopping only to read the papers. He resumed work again until 1 PM when he would stop for lunch. Then he would drive into town and do errands and walk the dog. Dinner was at 7 PM and if there were no parties, he would be in bed by 9:30, retiring with a book.
Work or no work, if the sun became unbearable, Truman would drive over to Southampton and have a swim in Gloria Vanderbilt's pool-whether or not she was in residence.

Truman moved in shortly after the release of the film version of his novella Breakfast at Tiffany's. He already had friends in the area, including Lee Radziwill and Gloria Vanderbilt-both were among the handful of women who inspired the story's heroine, Holly Golightly. Truman would seek out their company, but he also used the home for concentrated bouts of writing. It was here that he penned his factual murder account, In Cold Blood, and the now infamous guest list for his Black and White Ball. His longtime companion Jack Dunphy also resided here on Daniel's Lane, in a spartan cottage Truman later built for him 75 yards from his own residence.

In July of 1980, Jack Dunphy found Capote collapsed on the steps of his summer house with broken glass all around him. Dunphy rushed him to Southampton Hospital, where Capote told him, "I drink because it's the only time I can stand it." Three summers later he was dead.

The house recently went on the market for $14.6 million. The seller, is noted abstract-expressionist painter Ross Bleckner, who purchased the mid century saltbox house for $800,000 in 1993 from the Nature Conservancy.
Bleckner restored and enlarged the home. The main house is now 2,000 square feet. There is also a 1,900-square-foot studio, a two-bedroom guest house, a detached garage and a pool.
After Truman died in 1984 the house was left to his longtime companion, Jack Dunphy, who died in 1992 and left the property to the Nature Conservancy.