About Home Sweet Home Museum

Home Sweet Home is the most distinguished salt-box home in East Hampton. The house dates from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, with paneling installed in the parlor at mid-century. For all its simplicity, the old house seems to realize the dignity of its association with romance and its place in the hearts of people everywhere. It is situated on the village green in the center of colonial East Hampton. The house has come to embody the spirit of all that is tender and sweet about home.

The gardens at Home Sweet Home reflect the history of the “salt-box house,” the life of John Howard Payne, and the people who lived there or contributed to the creation of the gardens. The gardens reflect garden styles and include plant species that were in gardens in the United States and Europe from medieval times to the nineteenth century. These include a parlor window fragrance garden, a nineteenth century pleasure garden, and an eighteenth century herb garden.

Home Sweet Home and its contents exude a charm that is understood and felt the moment visitors step into the house. The fine eighteenth and nineteenth century antiques, china and lustreware appeal to our aesthetic and practical sensibilities. From 1907 to 1927, Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Buek owned and lived in the house and furnished every room with antique period and colonial revival pieces as well as John Howard Payne memorabilia as a shrine to one of America’s first great actors and playwrights. Upon Mr. Buek’s death, the Village of East Hampton, by referendum, bought the house and the collections and opened Home Sweet Home as a museum on December 15, 1928.

The dining room at Home Sweet Home Museum displaying the blue transfer ware on the wall and the 19th Century willow pattern on the table.

Home Sweet Home Museum & Gardens

14 James Lane
East Hampton, New York 11937

(631) 324-0713

Open daily May – September, 10 a.m. To 4 p.m.
Sunday 2 p.m. To 4 p.m.
October and November weekends only.
December – April by appointment only.