After becoming director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1968, Nobelist James D. Watson and his wife, Elizabeth Watson, decided to live in Osterhout. Watson used the profits from his recently published book The Double Helix to renovate Osterhout Cottage. In the minutes of the January 1969 Annual Meeting of the Long Island Biological Association, it states that James D. Watson and his wife, Elizabeth Watson, are "expected to be in fairly permanent residence [at CSHL] after the middle of June this year [1969]. They will live in a new house built on the site of the old Osterhout Cottage, and keep its name. This house is in the process of being built."

In the April 29, 1968 edition of Scientific Research, the Watsons' arrival at Cold Spring Harbor is described.