Carrington House friends in the community, including Truman Capote. In 1957, Capote developed a novella there that would become "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Other guests included New York City Ballet co-founder Lincoln Kerstein, fashion designer Bill Blass, actor Henry Fonda, actress Gertrude Lawrence, and actress Katharine Hepburn. Carrington owned the house for almost fifty years, then sold it to the US government as part of Fire Island National Seashore under the condition that he be able to live there for the rest of his life; he died on July 3, 1975. National Park Service Ranger Bob Freda lived there for the next twenty
Truman Capote of his novel "Other Voices, Other Rooms" (see below), moved to capitalize on this novel's success with the publication of "A Tree of Night and Other Stories" in 1949. In addition to "Miriam", this collection also includes "Shut a Final Door", first published in "The Atlantic Monthly" (August 1947). After "A Tree of Night", Capote published a collection of his travel writings, "Local Color" (1950), which included nine essays originally published in magazines between 1946 and 1950. "A Christmas Memory", a largely autobiographical story taking place in the 1930s, was published in "Mademoiselle" magazine in 1956. It was issued as