Peter Hallock and Craig Mowry's Otherworldly Cedar Crest Cottage - 27 East

Residence

Residence / 2194511

Peter Hallock and Craig Mowry's Otherworldly Cedar Crest Cottage

Number of images 11 Photos
The home's entry is a foliate fantasy. CRAIG MOWRY

The home's entry is a foliate fantasy. CRAIG MOWRY

A dining table with antler pedestal. CRAIG MOWRY

A dining table with antler pedestal. CRAIG MOWRY

A footbridge extends to the sandy beach.  CRAIG MOWRY

A footbridge extends to the sandy beach. CRAIG MOWRY

Craig Mowry and Peter Hallock.  CRAIG MOWRY

Craig Mowry and Peter Hallock. CRAIG MOWRY

More is more in the Hallock-Mowry home.  CRAIG MOWRY

More is more in the Hallock-Mowry home. CRAIG MOWRY

The eclectic dining room.  CRAIG MOWRY

The eclectic dining room. CRAIG MOWRY

The Hallock-Mowry cottage. CRAIG MOWRY

The Hallock-Mowry cottage. CRAIG MOWRY

The living room with birch branch detailing.  CRAIG MOWRY

The living room with birch branch detailing. CRAIG MOWRY

The lone bedroom sports a pair of Christopher Spitzmiller lamps. CRAIG MOWRY

The lone bedroom sports a pair of Christopher Spitzmiller lamps. CRAIG MOWRY

The shipshape kitchen. CRAIG MOWRY

The shipshape kitchen. CRAIG MOWRY

The vintage guest trailer.  CRAIG MOWRY

The vintage guest trailer. CRAIG MOWRY

Autor

House Proud

  • Publication: Residence
  • Published on: Aug 28, 2023
  • Columnist: Steven Stolman

There are some houses that defy description, so unique and chock full of visual treats that the only thing one can say is “Wow.”

That aspect of wonder would be an apt first reaction to the Cedar Crest cottage that is home to Peter Hallock, a longtime fixture on the Hamptons real estate scene with Southampton family roots that can be traced back to 1866, and his husband, Craig Mowry, a filmmaker and inventor of technology with 32 U.S. patents that underlie how digital images look and are shared.

Twenty-two years ago, the couple had a dream of spending summers on the Maine coast, but the realities of life got in the way. So they did the next best thing by finding the closest thing to a Maine experience among their real world, which has always been based in Southampton with outposts in Manhattan, California for a time, and now South Florida. Hallock said Cedar Crest, a private bay community, is “very generational,” so houses rarely come up for sale, and they bought the house the first second they saw it.

Located on nearly four acres at the end of a heavily wooded road in the low-key hamlet of North Sea, the cottage began its life as a kit home originally displayed by a manufacturer at the 1939 World’s Fair. It was trucked to its current location, a parklike expanse of towering cedars, lush foliage and verdant lawn fronting painterly Davis Creek, with a seemingly endless wooden footbridge spanning the creek and salt marsh to the sandy beaches of Little Peconic Bay beyond. It was one of a colony of cottages owned by the Tupper family, each named for a different flower. The Hallock-Mowry home was called “Love in a Mist” after a feathery blue-violet old-fashioned perennial.

Modest in size, the house’s footprint and basic structure are completely original. To maintain the authenticity of its kit home provenance, any windows or doors that were replaced were carefully chosen, sized and located in the exact same manner as the existing ones. An interior fireplace was also added, along with a wood-burning stove on one of the porches for chilly evenings. The façade and outdoor elements, however, were given an extraordinary amount of charming detailing. Cedar limbs harvested from fallen trees on the property, were heavily employed to create an Adirondack attitude via natural branch decorative overhang supports and deck railings. A large brick terrace was added and, most dramatic of all, is a dining pergola featuring a dense canopy of wisteria that appears to be in the process of enveloping everything.

All exterior siding was painted in the darkest brown with windows, shutters and doors in an equally dark green, allowing the entire house to recede into the surrounding greenery. To describe it all as organic would be an understatement, as one cannot tell where the house ends and the foliage begins. In contrast, pieces of contemporary sculpture dot the grounds, along with a theatrical in-ground fire wall, where flames lick a steel sculpture by artist Robert Kelly. And then there’s the guest house: a smartly outfitted vintage Airstream Caravel trailer that sleeps two, set on its own gravel patio. Who’da thunk it?

Within, the layout is simple and succinct, with a procession of small but smartly arranged rooms that include a single bedroom, a living room, a central dining room, a shipshape kitchen, two baths and a pair of glass-enclosed porches that function as additional entertaining spaces. The homeowners continued the waterside cottage vibe with a heavy application of wainscoting to most ceilings and walls, which along with all floors, were painted a glossy white and then layered with rugs upon rugs. In the living room, both the fireplace wall and the opposing gable, along with the room’s upper moldings, are fashioned completely from natural white birch branches. Don’t think for a moment that the size of the cottage poses any limitations to the homeowners’ abilities to entertain. “We’ve had sit-down dinners for 40 and cocktails for 200!” Hallock said.

Hallock labels his DIY décor as “traditionally eclectic.”

“We decorated the cottage ourselves, with inspiration from our travels. We are overzealous collectors,” he said.

It’s true; the dizzying number of collections include Japanese glass fishing floats, horn tumblers, pieces of sculpture, ceramics, antlers and a treasure trove of art that ranges from classical landscapes to midcentury collages to a Nahum Tschacbasov Cubo-surrealist piece titled “Red Head.”

With an iconic Southampton Village home as a previous address, Hallock explained, “My great-great-grandfather, Dr. David Hallock, also had a year-round house on South Main Street but had a summer place close by. Many local families had village homes but summered a few miles away in what were fondly called ‘camps.’ I never expected to follow this multigenerational migration to the bay.”

Clearly, it’s been a successful trip.

AutorMore Posts from Steven Stolman

Joey Wölffer and Max Rohn’s Eclectic North Haven Home

Look up the words “multitasker” and “risktaker” in any dictionary and you’re bound to find ... 3 Sep 2023 by Steven Stolman

Betty Wasserman Builds Her Dream House

For Betty Wasserman, her proudest professional accomplishment is the highly personal Southampton getaway that she ... 21 Aug 2023 by Steven Stolman

Artist-in-Residence: Larry Boschetto and Steven Kinder’s Water Mill Estate

Retired ad exec Larry Boschetto, whose CV includes CEO/COO of one of the world’s largest ... 14 Aug 2023 by Steven Stolman

Picture Perfect: Randi and Bob Tabor's East Hampton Home Perfectly Showcases a Photographer's Vision

When advertising industry legend Bob Tabor was ready to say goodbye to Madison Avenue for ... 7 Aug 2023 by Steven Stolman

Lydia and Rudy Touzet’s Southampton Village Charmer

When Lydia and Rudy Touzet purchased their Southampton Village house in 2019, they were already ... 31 Jul 2023 by Steven Stolman

2023 Hampton Designer Showhouse Mirrors Today’s Tastes

In the world of high style interior design, the longstanding platform of the designer showhouse ... 26 Jul 2023 by Steven Stolman

Legendary Grey Gardens Reborn Once More, by Fashion Star Liz Lange

For fashion designer and entrepreneur Liz Lange, who single-handedly revolutionized women’s maternity wear before moving ... 17 Jul 2023 by Steven Stolman

2023 Holiday House Hamptons Makes the Case for Modern in Both Architecture and Art

In 2008, designer and breast cancer survivor Iris Dankner came up with a novel concept: ... 10 Jul 2023 by Steven Stolman

For Jeff and Mala Sander, a Modest Bay Point Cottage Is 'Heaven'

With so many aspects of “the old Hamptons” disappearing at a dizzying pace, associate real ... 5 Jul 2023 by Steven Stolman

Kristen Farrell, Designer and Developer

Kristen Farrell’s imprint on the Hamptons cannot be ignored. For 18 years, while serving as ... 26 Jun 2023 by Steven Stolman