Truman Capote’s Personal Treasures From Iconic Hamptons Home Head to Auction After Decades in Storage

Fans of Truman Capote’s masterworks will soon have a rare opportunity to hold the In Cold Blood author’s personal belongings in the flesh. The iconic American writer, whose complex life and literary genius have been vividly dramatized in the 2005 biographical film Capote and the 2024 miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, passed away in 1984 at the age of 59. Following his death, many of his most cherished personal belongings were entrusted to Gerald Clarke, a respected journalist, close friend, and biographer who released his definitive study of the writer in 1988. Now 89 years old, Clarke is currently downsizing his life and preparing to put nearly 400 distinct lots of Capote’s personal objects up for public auction.

The upcoming Cornell Auction sale is officially scheduled to take place on November 21, preceded by an online preview and bidding period slated for October 26. While the Bellport, New York, auction house has not yet released the complete and exhaustive catalogue to the public, representatives revealed in a recent Instagram video that the vast majority of the items featured in the Truman Capote auction were originally photographed almost exactly 50 years ago, back in 1976, during a landmark Architectural Digest spread showcasing Truman’s custom-built house in Sagaponack on the South Fork of Long Island.

Photographic evidence and previews shared by The New York Times have confirmed that a significant trove of Capote’s famed paperweights, which were prominently featured in the original Architectural Digest feature, will be up for grabs. The celebrated scribe became thoroughly fascinated by paperweights, ultimately amassing a massive collection. "He became addicted to paperweights and collected so many of them," Clarke told The Times. Some of these unique decorative pieces were handcrafted by Capote himself, utilizing delicate flowers carefully preserved in resin. Among the most extraordinary items slated for the auction is a custom paperweight created using actual rocks gathered from the remote Kansas farm that was immortalized in his landmark non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.

Other notable lots heading to the auction block include a treasured, signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird inscribed by Harper Lee, Capote’s lifelong friend and literary confidante; an ornate bronze frog inkwell; and, remarkably, Capote’s own house keys. These artifacts offer an intimate window into the private world of a literary giant who balanced a relentless dedication to his craft with a dazzling, high-society existence.

To truly understand the weight and provenance of these items, one must revisit the sanctuary where many of them lived. It is virtually impossible to find his Long Island home in the Hamptons, but that is precisely how he wanted it. Hidden discreetly behind a dense barrier of scrub pine, towering privet hedges, and thick rows of hydrangea bushes is Truman Capote’s two-story, weathered-gray beach house situated near Sagaponack on the South Fork.

He lived in the heart of the Hamptons—a picturesque landscape of rolling potato fields and lush farmlands stretching toward the Atlantic Ocean. Functioning simultaneously as a year-round farming community and a glamorous summer retreat for city elites, it is a place where historic antique farmhouses quietly vie with modernistic glass architecture tucked into the dunes and fields. Mr. Capote once famously described Sagaponack as "Kansas with a sea breeze."

Over the years, the surrounding area evolved into a rural Montparnasse, drawing luminaries such as James Jones, Willem de Kooning, Marya Mannes, Jean Stafford, Joseph Heller, and numerous other prominent artists and writers. It retained the charm of a sleepy, sentimental town where the local tavern—where Truman Capote frequently lunched or enjoyed a quiet drink with fellow writers like John Knowles or Willie Morris—regularly ran an affectionate advertisement in the biweekly local newspaper wishing him a happy birthday. Here, he could come and go entirely as he pleased.

The most reliable way to locate Mr. Capote’s secluded residence was with the author himself behind the wheel of his deep-green Buick. The journey involved a short but notoriously bumpy ride down a rustic dirt lane first opened back in 1670, followed by a quick turn onto a gravel driveway winding past a natural bird sanctuary and a friend’s cottage built on his property, before he jerkily pulled up in front of his box-shaped, flat-roofed wooden house. Wildflowers bloomed across the landscape, and the distinct, pungent scent of potatoes nearly ready for harvest hung heavily on the salty Atlantic air.

"I own these fields," he would say proudly, sweeping his left hand like a traditional plantation owner over the six acres he had owned since 1962, when he had the house constructed strictly to his specifications. "By a local carpenter who’s dead now. He did it to my directions. It’s exactly the way I wanted it. I work at this untended look. It’s intentional. You can see how quiet it is here because you can barely see the top of another house. This is a place to be alone."

Only a select few trusted friends ever ventured up the overgrown, hidden path to the house nestled deep within the dune grass, and every single visitor was strictly invited in advance.

"I’m here to work. I come here a lot in the autumn and winter, and I see almost no one. I don’t care for the Hamptons in the summer—it’s gotten too crowded. I don’t understand the way some people come out here and run themselves ragged every night. I just don’t think some of these writers are working."

This perspective might seem striking coming from Mr. Capote, a man who famously knew everyone from prison inmates to European princesses, socialites to sailors, and who simultaneously maintained a dual reputation as one of America’s greatest prose stylists and one of society’s most active butterflies.

"I spend most of my time out here reading, writing, going for walks with my dog and talking on the telephone. I see people in New York; I don’t see New York people out here. I hardly see anyone when I’m here. In the past 14 years, since I’ve had this house, I’ve gone out six times for dinner. Now that’s quite a record for someone known for being so social, isn’t it? Besides, whom would I entertain? I only know about four people I’d really have over!"

Entering his residence through the back kitchen door, he would remove his loafers in a traditional Japanese style before stepping into the expansive living room. Walking barefoot, the writer would casually pick up a rag mop as delicately as Fred Astaire tapped his dancing cane to gently dust the marine-blue floor, which was often still slightly tacky from a fresh coat of boat deck paint.

"I’ve just had it repainted, and this humidity doesn’t help it dry. You should see this room at night. The floor floats like a big blue-green lake."

Capote frequently described his unusual home as a "raincoat," referring to the method of its architectural construction. Built with the exterior framing walls exposed to reveal vertical studs and horizontal bracing, the outer skin of the building served to shelter the interior, functioning much like a heavy raincoat against the elements.

"I wanted a rustic house. I really think of it as one big room. Completely winterized, it’s been designed to look unfinished. I call it ‘run-down comfort.’ I like the effect of texture in rooms—the rawness of the wood plus the mirrors that line one end."

A dramatic floor-to-ceiling window featuring divided panes welcomed the brilliant morning sunlight while offering an unobstructed view of the sea and sand stretching out roughly 200 yards beyond the structure. A spiraling steel staircase led upward to a balconied second-floor study lined with comfortable red sofas, wicker chairs, hassocks, and a celebrated René Bouché sketch of Capote. It was here that he spent countless hours working or reading.

Notably, none of the furniture or interior furnishings featured metaphorical "Don’t Touch" signs. His possessions were comfortable, aesthetically engaging, and clearly designed to be actively used rather than passively observed. A priceless Tiffany lamp peeked over the shoulder of a worn yellow velvet easy chair, while the upholstery featured sun-faded patches that contrasted with the glittering, pristine collections of paperweights. The wicker chairs and tables were sourced either from inexpensive import shops or acquired as rare antiques, such as the round, claw-footed table downstairs where Capote did his heavy writing. Needlepoint pillows lovingly crafted by friends were scattered about alongside silver-framed photographs of Lee Radziwill, an elegant woman captured sitting primly in an amusement park bumper car, and Maggie.

Though her presence was marked by pale blond hairs left in her wake, Maggie—Capote’s celebrated English bulldog—was often out exploring. "She’s next door visiting," the author would cheerfully explain. He delighted in talking about his sweet, quirky pet, who had once famously devoured Joanne Carson’s pink satin slippers and Charlotte Curtis’s holiday poinsettias, while periodically raiding picnic baskets left unattended along Gibson Beach. "Oh, she’s very munchy all right," he would concede, pushing his Windex-blue-tinted prescription glasses up on his bridge, offering a characteristic shrug, and letting out his trademark high-pitched giggle.

Just off the massive living room was a small screened-in porch reminiscent of traditional Southern homes, filled with his beloved wicker furniture and utilized as a tranquil summer sitting room when gentle breezes blew in from the ocean. His bedroom, located near the kitchen, was exceptionally stark and sparsely furnished, bearing a close resemblance to a summer camper’s tent. Near his cot-sized bed rested a tall stack of detective magazines, a physical fitness reducing machine, and the standard pile of favorite literature.

"I like to have my own things around me. Even when I travel to my other houses in Switzerland and in California, I take things of my own with me," noted Capote, whose primary permanent base remained a sleek, modern apartment overlooking the United Nations Plaza in Manhattan. "I’m a great houseguest. I only appear at mealtimes. However, I really don’t like people staying with me. It’s interrupting."

His daily routine in Sagaponack maintained a steadfast, simple regularity. "I get up around 7:00 a.m. and work until 11:00, stopping to read the papers. I work again until 1:00 p.m., when I have my lunch. Then I drive to the post office, do my errands, go for a walk. I fool around in the evenings, reading, walking Maggie. I have my dinner by 7:00 p.m., and I’m usually in bed around 9:30 with a book."

At the time, while deeply immersed in his long-awaited, highly controversial novel Answered Prayers, the author had also recently completed his inaugural major film role in Murder by Death, a cinematic comedy penned by Neil Simon.

"You’ll have to wait to see what happens, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. It has a great cast—Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Myrna Loy, Eileen Brennan, Peter Falk, David Niven, Madeline Kahn, James Coco, Nancy Walker—and I have the lead part!"

In the film, he played Lionel Twain, an eccentric, reclusive millionaire residing in a gloomy New England Victorian mansion who serves as the world’s foremost authority on detective fiction—a role he considered "perfect" given his lifelong obsession with real-world crime and the meticulous research behind In Cold Blood.

Capote was an unrepentant collector, a fact he readily acknowledged. A wonderful photograph captured years prior by society photographer Slim Aarons depicted a youthful Capote perched elegantly on a Victorian sofa amidst a dense assembly of his favorite decorative objects. "I like to collect things, Victorian things, and mix everything together. I enjoy looking for and at all of them. I’m not sure I need them. I’ve got too much, and I haven’t edited myself lately!"

True to his independent nature, he stubbornly designed his own living spaces. "For me, it’s a bore to use a decorator. I know exactly what I want. I just don’t care to have someone come in and tell me what I need to live with. I know."

Asked about his personal philosophy of interior design, he offered a characteristically witty summary: "Something that’s not immediately offensive when you walk into a room. Of course it may be, eventually."

Born in New Orleans and raised across the American South, Capote famously began his classic novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s with the enduring line: "I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and the neighborhoods." For him, Sagaponack provided that emotional anchor. "I moved around so much as a child, I never had a sense of home. Maybe I did when I was 11 and I lived in a rural town in Alabama."

Glancing up at a hat rack mounted above his rustic brick fireplace, the writer whimsically pointed toward his casual assortment of rumpled Panama hats.

"Home is where I hang my hats," he laughed. "However, I keep leaving them when I go visit people. I don’t have as many as I used to because I don’t recover them all. People always promise to send them back, but they don’t."