When the Weekend House Becomes a Full-Time Home

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At first glance, Ulysses Smith, a 44-year-old anti-corruption lawyer, and his wife, Sara Berliner, a 41-year-old strategist for an app design studio, may not seem like typical North Fork locals. Her chunky, gray tortoiseshell glasses and his skinny jeans and plaid button-downs make them look more the part of hip Brooklyn parents than country folk. And yet, locals they are, having traded their Cobble Hill rental last January for a Cutchogue “tree house,” a light-filled, four-bedroom raised ranch they’ve decorated in midcentury style.

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But they longed for a vacation place of their own, and in 2015, they closed on the house they now call home, chosen for its airy interiors, wooded acre lot and location in the exclusive Nassau Point neighborhood, where they can walk to the beach. After about a year of glorious weekend getaways, they began fantasizing about making the North Fork their full-time home. “We loved the access to the outdoors and the natural glow of the light,” Mr. Smith said. “On certain days, you can feel like you’re in Provence.” After a bit of reshuffling of their work schedules — Ms. Berliner works from home, but Mr. Smith commutes — they were ready. They moved out full-time in January, saying goodbye to Brooklyn, where they had lived for 12 years. Their Brooklyn friends thought they were crazy, but they immediately felt at home. “Our life was so much calmer,” Ms. Berliner said.

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Mr. Earls, 45, said he looks forward to returning to Peconic whenever he commutes into the city to his sports content company, Sportuu, often two or three days a week. “There’s just so much to do,” he said of life in Peconic. “On our street alone, there are two tasting rooms, a vineyard, a big park and a craft brewery.” In some ways, they say, living there feels like being on a permanent vacation. Ms. Earls enjoys shopping in the small villages. Their sons, who are 8 and 5 and attend Peconic Community School, get a kick out of sitting in the car at a stoplight behind a huge tractor.

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