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the works of local artists in every city, and this is something that comes from the heart. Case in point: Perkins befriended under-the-radar Houston artist Dorothy Hood back in the late '70s and purchased a number of her works. "She never got her due until recently, but Fred loved her work," Hoak says. "Now she's considered the preeminent Texas painter." (An international exhibition of her works is currently being mounted by the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi.) Perkins and Hoak have several of her paintings in the main house and cottage. A Terry Elkins boat painting, which hangs over the brick mantel in the cottage, is a Hamptons-based artist they've been promoting for years by selling his works in their stores in the Hamptons and in Los Angeles. "We love helping artists," Hoak says. P art of the fun of peeling back the layers in their house is that you never know when another in- triguing story will emerge. Hoak, who describes himself as a "book-aphile," explains how their book collection includes 2,000 tomes inherited from a 1920s house they purchased in 1995 in Water Mill, a hamlet of Southampton. The house had belonged to pianists and performers Robert Fizdale and Arthur Gold, fixtures in New York's artistic community, who were friends with literary and cultural figures such as Truman Capote, George Balan- chine, Jerome Robbins, and Jackson Pollock. Their estate had no heirs, so the contents were sold for charity — but no one wanted the books, a varied collection that included titles on dance, art, design, and cooking. "So many of the authors were friends of theirs," says Hoak. "I opened up one book, and it was signed by Jerome Robbins. What they had was so personal to that way of life and the way they lived." Hoak discovered other books inscribed by luminaries in their respective fields, such as textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen, who retired to the Hamptons to garden; painter and poet Robert Dash; legendary abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning; and screenwriter and influential dance critic Edwin Denby, whose 16-page typed letter to Fitzdale and Gold was tucked inside a manila envelope in the back of a book. In the main-house dining room, a French mid-century-inspired chair is part of the Mecox 20th anniversary collection. Antique French table. Woven-rope chairs from Mecox. In background, 1940s English leather club chair. (continued from page 91) (continued on page 106) Sackett Houston, TX 8 .8.666 houston@mattcamron.com mattcamron.com