“LOOK, there’s a daffodil,” said the singer and actress Jessica Molaskey, pointing delightedly to a scrap of yellow poking out of the ground outside the wood-and-stone weekend cabin here that she shares with her husband, the jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli and their two children. “Oh, evening primrose and bleeding heart,” she said continuing the garden tour while brushing away a cat’s cradle of branches that had fallen during a recent storm.  It was the fat fee Mr. Pizzarelli earned from a series of commercials for the Foxwoods casino that enabled the couple to buy this waterfront property, part of the Sedgewood Club, a 225-acre lake association with 90 homes that was once known as the Carmel Country Club.  For years the family had spent summer vacations at a friend’s property in East Hampton, N.Y. “It wasn’t fancy, but it was like our little dream house,” said Ms. Molaskey, who appeared on Broadway in shows like “Crazy for You” and the recent revival of “Sunday in the Park With George” and frequently performs with her husband. “So we started looking for a place in the Hamptons. We saw Quonset huts on cinderblocks for $2 million.”  Meanwhile they were getting bulletins about the high times at the Sedgewood Club, where their friend Devin Keudell, a theatrical general manager, had a vacation home.  “Our friends Rob and Kevin were always going up to visit,” said Ms. Molaskey, referring to the director and Tony-winning choreographer Rob Ashford and his companion, Kevin Ryan. “I’d ask, ‘What are you doing New Year’s Eve?,’ and they’d say, ‘We’re going to the lake.’ I was starting to get tired of hearing about the wonderful times they were having.”  A half-dozen summers ago Mr. Pizzarelli, 50, and Ms. Molaskey, 48, known in some quarters as the Nick and Nora of cabaret, were planning to cap off an appearance at the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Connecticut with yet another house-hunting jaunt to the Hamptons. “And Devin said to me, ‘Before you go out there, will you please look up here?’ ” Ms. Molaskey recalled. “So I went online and saw this little place right on the water and I thought, ‘Cute.’ ”  “When we got off the main road and crossed the bridge, it was like being in Arcadia  or Brigadoon,” she continued. “Then when we came down the driveway, I don’t know if it was the light or the water, but I started to cry.” Meanwhile, she said, the couple’s daughter, Maddie, now 12, ran into the house, came out and said, “We’ll take it.”  The 1,200-square-foot cabin, built in 1928, is as down-home rustic as the Pizzarelli-Molaskey nightclub act is sophisticated. The pine-plank floors are dotted with braided rugs; the couches and chairs, mostly wicker, are covered with pillows that began life as quilts. Retro barkcloth curtains frame the windows, and custom cabinets beside the stone fireplace hold the vintage restaurant ware that Ms. Molaskey has collected since her 20s. “You can’t get too grand with these places,” she said. “Things have to be kind of shabby.”  Rickety steps lead down the hill to “anniversary dock”  a present from Ms. Molaskey to Mr. Pizzarelli a few years back  where three upturned kayaks wait to be called into service, and where nightclub acts and CDs like Mr. Pizzarelli’s new Ellington tribute, “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” are conceived and assembled. “We do a lot of good work up here,” he said.  The location also makes it easy to do good work elsewhere. “We can be at the Carlyle on a Saturday night until 2 a.m.,” Ms. Molaskey said, referring to the Café Carlyle, the Manhattan nightclub where the couple perform for six weeks every year. “And then we wake up Sunday morning with our coffee, leave at 9, be here at 10 and still feel like we’ve had a whole day.”  The quick commute explains the area’s appeal to others whose schedules are heavy on late nights and matinees, and explains why residents have given the Sedgewood Club the nickname Broadway North. The theater producer Kevin McCollum and the director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall live close by. Mr. Ashford and Mr. Ryan bought the cabin next to the Pizzarelli-Molaskey property.  Some of these neighbors are regulars at the singers’ barbecues. “The moon will come up,” Ms. Molaskey said. “And I’m not saying alcohol is involved, but everyone will say, ‘Let’s go swimming.’ They run down and dive into the lake, then come back and sit down as if nothing had happened.”  There are plans for home improvement when record sales permit: a mudroom, a larger bedroom for Maddie, and an expansion of the galley kitchen where Mr. Pizzarelli, aided by John, his 19-year-old son from a previous marriage, turns out five-course pasta tastings, osso buco, and, on Christmas Eve, lobster risotto.  “But I sort of like the cozy size of things right now,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me if we ever do anything, because it fits us really well. We can all be here and see each other the whole time. You can’t hide anywhere. We all have to agree if we’re going to watch a TV show.”  On Labor Day, the last glorious moment of the couple’s second summer at the house, Mr. Pizzarelli muttered something about going to start the car and escaped to the garage so the rest of the family wouldn’t see him crying. “I know it sounds crazy,” he said, “but it was the best time ever.”  “I keep looking at my schedule,” he added. “I always tell my booking agent to make sure I can get three weeks up here in the summer. We always say goodbye to the house when we leave. We say hello when we go in. I love the place so much.”  It wasn’t always clear that the feeling was reciprocated. Hours after closing on the two-acre property, Mr. Pizzarelli and Ms. Molaskey opened the door to their new house, heard an ominous rumble, then the crash of glass: the front picture window had blown out. Soon after, while working in the kitchen, Mr. Pizzarelli cut two fingers, “something I never do,” he said.  “So we sat in the living room and talked to the spirit of the guy who used to live here,” Mr. Pizzarelli said. “We said: ‘We love the house. We’re here to have a good time. We’re only going to fill this place with joy. We just want you to know what we’re doing.’ ”  “And ever since then,” Mr. Pizzarelli continued, “nothing bad has happened.”
The cabaret performers Jessica Molaskey and John Pizzarelli are staples of Manhattan urbanity, but their choice of a getaway is a rustic lakeside cottage in Carmel, N.Y.