It’s commonly known that house museums show us how people used to live, what's less known is that people still live in them today. I first had this realization when Paul Moakley, photographer, filmmaker and the deputy photo editor of Time, told me that he lives in the Alice Austen house museum on Staten Island. Being interested in the unexpected places that people inhabit, I immediately asked if I could see his home.
What I found was a studio apartment with a private deck, atop an 18th-century Victorian cottage, complete with a beach and expansive views of the Hudson River, New York City and the Verrazano Bridge. This was an idyllic and indeed unexpected place to call home and I felt that I had to document it.