The Hidden Dutch Colonial

When Nicholas Howey and his late husband, Gerard Widdershoven, bought this 1925 house tucked away behind the hedges in Bridgehampton, they did little more than paint it-and fill it with art.

- WENDY GOODMAN

I ALWAYS DREAMED of having a country house with a separate studio," says Nicholas Howey, which is just what he got when he and his husband, Gerard Widdershoven, bought this Bridgehampton property in 2008. The privet was hiding the Dutch Colonial from both the street and the fact it was sitting on one full acre of land-enough room for a studio in what was once a three-car garage and an old barn Howey describes as "adding to the atmosphere." Howey, a native of Dubois, Pennsylvania, graduated from NYU with an M.A. in art in 1974 and later went to work for the artist Robert Rauschenberg.

The Kitchen

A diptych of Roy Lichtenstein posters. Widdershoven owned one and then Howey bought the other, not knowing they were a pair.