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"For many New Yorkers who make the weekend exodus out of Manhattan to locations east of Southampton, they pass a pair of Gilded Age wrought-iron gates as they enter the hamlet of Water Mill. Behind these gates is Villa Maria, which was the cover story of AD's July issue. Designed by architect George Skidmore in 1887 for merchant industrialists Josiah Lombard and Marshall Ayres, it was originally a Queen Anne Shingle\u2013style home with a four-story tower and numerous gables. In 1919, third owner Edward Phinley Morse commissioned architect Frank Freeman to update and enlarge the house. The shingles and outmoded Queen Anne details were stripped and, inspired by Italian and even Egyptian architecture, Freeman transformed it into into a modern palatial mansion\u2014and one of the Hampton's most prominent landmarks.\n\nBy 1931, the house was sold to the Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic of Amityville, who eventually renamed it Villa Maria and used the property for religious teachings and other related purposes. In 2005 the sisters, no longer able to maintain the now aging house, sold it to Vincent and Louise Camuto, who engaged architect Andre Tchelistcheff to update and restore the estate to its original grandeur.\n\nClick here to see the many incarnations of the magnificent Villa Maria throughout its history.\n\nTo pre-order the re-released edition of Gary Lawrance and Anne Surchin's definitive book on legendary estates of the East End, Houses of the Hamptons, 1880\u20131930 (Acanthus Press, $85), click here."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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