Wyeth rented studio space in that house.

Wyeth used his upstairs studio for 30 years, and featured the house in many paintings and lithographs. He captured stark rooms, austere mantels, and somber rooftop views.

Everyone knows that old houses take on the personalities of their owners, but Wyeth knew something more. "In the portraits of that house, the windows are eyes or pieces of the soul, almost," he said years later. "To me, each window is a different part of Christina's life."

Christina Olson died in 1969. She had lived in the house her entire life. Neighbors say she had no idea that her small world had become famous.

Over the next twenty years, the house changed hands several times. For awhile there was nervous speculation that it would become yet another bed and breakfast inn. One owner, movie mogul Joseph Levine, brought in Hollywood set builders to "authenticate" the place by spraying its rooms with fake cobwebs and weathering the facade so it resembled the building Wyeth painted. Finally, the house sold to John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Computer Inc., and Lee Adams Sculley. In 1991 they gave it to the Farnsworth Art Museum in nearby Rockland.