John Steinbeck lived in this home with his wife, Elaine, from 1955 until his death in 1968. Elaine Steinbeck continued to live in the home until her death in 2003.

Steinbeck wrote The Winter of Our Discontent here, and he began his cross-country journey chronicled in Travels with Charley: In Search of America from his Sag Harbor home.

Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940 for his novel Grapes of Wrath. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. He is one of only thirteen American authors to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he is one of only 8 American authors to win both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He lived in this Sag Harbor home when he received the Nobel Prize in 1962.