The North Fork

A SERENE AND picturesque respite from the malls and the expressway, Long Island's North Fork offers its own quiet enticements. The burgeoning wine-growing industry that has grown up here over the past two decades is a source of fierce regional pride, so when you're in the area, do try to work at least one winery into your itinerary.

Our tour begins in Southold and ends in Orient, but along the way you can ramble about any of the pretty little towns you pass in between. And don't forget to stop at a roadside farmstand en route home.

Historic Museums of Southold The museum grounds are spread out over Main Street in the quaint town of Southold. The historic Prince Building is home to the administrative office, the museum archives, as well as a charming gift shop. A block away are the major restorations.

Start there, at the Victorian residence that was the home of writer and historian Ann Currie-Bell. Built by her father, Joseph Hallock in 1900, the house incorporates a number of architectural and decorative styles. If you're an aficianado of period costumes and hats, you'll find a treasure trove here.

In the front parlor, look up at the ceiling to admire the beautiful gold leaf-trimmed painting of the sky. On the wall of the parlor is a portrait of Hallock, who was the Southold town clerk, assemblyman, and owner of the newspaper. Note the excellent condition of the Victorian furniture here and throughout the house. The Victorian kitchen is a sight indeed, with its old-fashioned range, ice box and water pump; not to mention a doughnut maker, a coffee grinder, a cherry pitter, and a dandy old telephone.

It was while traveling though the French countryside that Ann Hallock -- then in her 30s -- first saw the Scottish artist Thomas Currie-Bell, a widower 20 years her senior, at work on a painting. She stopped to admire the canvas, and a relationship began. Currie-Bell followed Ann home and shortly thereafter, the two were married.

An entire upstairs room of the house is devoted to the Currie-Bells' romance. In addition to being a renowned portraitist and landscape painter with one work hanging in the Hermitage in Leningrad, Thomas Currie-Bell was also a musician, a sailor, and a composer. The sheet music to a love song he composed for the woman he called "Nannie" is on display in that room, as is the painting Ann admired when the two first met.

Also upstairs is a fascinating doll collection in Ann's childhood bedroom, as well as a unique dollhouse her aunt fashioned out of soap boxes. Move on to the sewing room and check out some of the grand vintage clothing -- a petticoat made especially for bicycling, a duster used for motoring, and a dress with an early Saks Fifth Avenue label. And, oh, those hats! Be sure to see the bathroom, innovative for its time, with its old shaving mugs and pull-chain toilet. In the master bedroom, stop to admire the lovely quilt, the fine woodwork, and the old family photographs on the wall.

Outdoors, stroll over to the beautiful, raftered 18th Century barn. Inside, you'll find an impressive collection of sleighs, sleds and carriages, including an 1870 sleigh used specifically to deliver groceries. One section of the barn is devoted to pigs: there's a sausage-stuffer, lard press, meat chopping block, hock scraper, as well as a graphic photograph of a hog being butchered by members of the Currie-Bell family.

Explore the outbuildings: the little circular icehouse, the buttery, the corn crib, a farm machine building, and a print shop. And don't miss the pink jewel-box of a millinery, with its flowered curtains. There's even an old privy, restored for public use. The 1822 Bayview schoolhouse is furnished with ink-well-equipped wooden desks and an old wood-burning stove. Browse through the old books. Nearby, you'll find a blacksmith shop, operational until 1940.

On the property, you'll also find one of the most interesting old buildings on Long Island, the Thomas Moore House, named for the original settler on whose land the Landon family built their home in 1750. Infused with the fragrance of antiquity, the house is painted in the original blues and greens used during the 18th Century.

Horton Point Lighthouse

In a beautiful parklike setting, this 140-year-old lighthouse with a small enclosed corridor attached museum overlooks the Long Island Sound.

In that museum, you'll find a collection of whaling tools and lighthouse artifacts from centuries past. Of particular note is a collection of ships records and memorabilia brought back from the voyages of several East End whaling captains. Take time to admire the portrait of Captain Henry Green, and examine the beautiful printed silk baby quilt from Japan, an 1846 gift from Captain Mercator Cooper to his sister-in-law, Henry Green's wife, Roxana. Among other treasures are a collection of 18th Century "pieces of eight" used as currency in the colony. There's an old chandler's safe, an assortment of submarine artifacts, some whale oil lamps, a battleship model, and scrimshaw work done by those who worked at the lifesaving stations that dotted the coastline. You also can see the first geographic map of the Long Island Sound, printed in 1855. A serendipitous item -- discovered under the rug of the original lighthouse keeper's dwelling -- is an original newspaper printed two days after Lincoln's assassination.

In a room downstairs, original oil paintings make naval history come to life. There's also a model of the whale ship Morgan under full sail, on loan from the American Oceanographic Society. Pause for a moment near a small but important exhibit about Horton Point's first woman lighthouse keeper, Stella Prince. The museum connects by causeway to the lighthouse itself, one of the only three lighthouse towers accessible to the public on Long Island.

Oysterponds Historical Society

Not far from the tip of the North Fork is this remarkable collection of old buildings which collectively chronicle over 200 years of village life.

The Old Point Schoolhouse, built in 1888, houses the administrative offices, a gallery for changing exhibits and a research library -- open only by appointment -- where one of Long Island's largest collections of documents and primary sources is kept.

Next door is the Village House, built in 1798 by Augustus Griffin, a Southold Town historian who ran it as a stagecoach stop and inn. In 1853, it was bought by the Vail family, who renovated it and, during the 1880s, converted it into a boarding house. It is in that Victorian boarding house motif that the site has been refurbished. One can only imagine the meals boarders shared around the imposing dining room tables. Upstairs are six bedrooms, three furnished to reflect the boarding house era.