Fairfield Porter House

Built circa 1840, this handsome Greek Revival house is associated with two prominent Southampton families—the Piersons and the Rogers—with whaling captains represented in both family histories. Some refer to the house historically as the Pierson House and others call it the Captain Rogers House. But it is best known today as the Fairfield Porter House, having been the home of the well-known realist painter for 25 years. Drawn to the East End of Long Island by its special light and its leafy village streets, Porter acknowledged to his biographer his immediate affinity for the South Main Street property, with its seven-bedroom house and grounds shaded by ancient trees, which Mary Rogers put on the market in 1949. Included in the $25,000 price was a barn, a garage, a toolshed, an arbor, a small orchard and a meadow running down to Lake Agawam. Fairfield Porter’s wife was the poet Anne Porter. Out of the barn, which Fairfield made into his studio, came many paintings of family members casually enjoying their environment, indoors and out. The house, family, the grounds, the neighborhood, friends, and even pets were Fairfield Porter’s Southampton subjects. Except for summers in Maine, Porter spent the years until his death in 1975 in the South Main Street house. Each new owner since then has made further improvements to the property without infringing on its noble lines. At a time when the art world was dominated by Abstract Expressionism, Porter was committed to realism well before he was “discovered” at around age 50 when his realist paintings—many inspired by his time in this Southampton house—began to sell for thousands of dollars and hung on the walls of museums all over the country.