207 Madison Street

Madison Street runs through the blocks where Sag Harbor's whaling money settled, and No. 207 went up at the height of that economy. Colonel Henry Wentworth Hunt built the house in 1841; he published the Sag Harbor Corrector, the newspaper that chronicled the port at its peak and survives, through a merger, as today's Sag Harbor Express. His family held the house for three generations, more than a century in all.

In 1967 it passed to Joe Petrocik and Myron Clement, the Manhattan publicists who met Truman Capote on a Sagaponack beach and stayed close to him until his death. Capote visited so often the front parlor came to be called Truman's bedroom, and his red 1968 Mustang convertible sat in the garage for decades afterward, Capote plate still on it. When their estate sold in 2022, the buyer's LLC filed as Project Capote.

The owners then spent four years on the house with Riostello Studio, Further Development, MJS Building, and Halcyon Design. The 1841 structure was lifted whole for a new foundation and rejoined by a 1,400-square-foot addition that brings the residence to roughly 6,050 square feet: five bedrooms, six full baths, two powder rooms. What could be kept was kept, including the solid timber porch columns, the front door with its rim lock and sidelights, and the hand-hewn beams; brick from the chimneys and granite from the original foundation were worked back into the gardens.

The interiors run to wide-plank white oak, Belgian bluestone, and Waterworks fittings, with radiant heat in the baths. The eat-in kitchen holds a leathered quartzite island, custom white oak cabinetry, and a La Cornue range. A finished lower level adds a fitness room with steam shower, a theater, and a guest suite with its own entrance.

By the Bay Land Design planted the 0.38-acre lot with mature hornbeams and pleached lindens around a heated 17-by-40 saltwater gunite pool and spa, with Kota limestone terraces running between the structures. The restored glass conservatory, arranged for now as a fifth bedroom with a full bath, may be the most coveted room on the property; a pool cabana and a garage complete the compound, a few blocks from Main Street. The ask is $13,800,000, with Noble Black, Jon Vaccari, and Averitt Buttry of Corcoran.