If not for the efforts of the Westhampton Beach Historical Society, the Foster-Meeker House would have been demolished. This historic treasure was built around 1735 and is likely the oldest surviving house in the village! The historical society bought the building in 2008 and moved it from 297 Main Street to 115 Mill Road at the historical society's headquarters complex; the building now contains the Foster-Meeker Heritage Center. Also on the campus are three more historic buildings. The 1840 Josiah Tuthill House is next door to the Foster-Meeker House, at 101 Mill Road. Two historical wood frame outbuildings were moved to the campus for preservation and are in the rear yard of the Tuthill House: a carriage house with privy from the Foster-Meeker property, dating to about 1850; and a milk house from Thurston Raynor's Apaucuck Farm. Admission is free but donations are appreciated. The Foster-Meeker House was added to the National Register in 2009 for its importance in early settlement and architecture.
The Quoque Historical Society is located in the Pond House at 114 Jessup Avenue in the midst of the National Register-listed Quogue Village Historical District. A walking tour brochure is available from outside the Pond House or from an online download (linked below), showing some of the historical buildings along Jessup Avenue. The historic district encompasses about 200 buildings (maps provided as figures below) representing the village's 250-year-old history. The village was an isolated agricultural settlement in the early eighteenth century, settled from existing settlers moving from nearby Southampton (which had been settled by Puritans in 1640). The Long Island Railroad reached the village in 1876, encouraging the development of truck farming and bringing summer visitors. By the late nineteenth century, Quogue was a bustling seaside resort with many hotels, boarding houses, and seaside cottages and estate residences. The twentieth century brought the incorporation of the village in 1928. The contributing buildings in the historic district date from the mid-1700s to the 1930s and are 90 percent residential.
Quogue's Life-Saving Station was built on the barrier island in 1912 in the Shingle Style from one of the standard plans for U.S. Life-Saving Service buildings. It was next door to the first life-saving station that was built on this site in 1872. Previously, a boat house built on the island in 1849 was used by volunteers to aid in water rescues from shipwrecks. The Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service merged to become the U.S. Coast Guard in 1915 and the station was sold to the U.S. Navy. The building has been a private residence since purchased from the Coast Guard in the late 1940s and has been owned by two different families since then. The Quogue Life-Saving Station was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 1999. The Quogue Station is one of the most intact of the dozen stations built on Long Island before 1915.
The William Merritt Chase Homestead, on the north side of Canoe Place Road in Shinnecock Hills, was designed by the well-known New York City architectural firm McKim, Mead & White and built in 1891-1892. The building was the combined summer home and artist's studio for William Merritt Chase, an American artist. A school of art was established in Shinnecock Hills in 1891, inspired by the founder's trips to Europe and seeing the popularity of plein air painting outdoors. Chase was invited to become headmaster of the school. The "Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art" has been credited with being the birthplace of an American expressionist landscape painting. Chase taught at the school in the summers until it closed in 1902; Chase used the house until his death in 1916. The property was listed in the New York and National Registers in 1983. Bathing Beach Road leads northwest from Canoe Place Road through the dense woods to the private property. The house and a garage still stand on the 2.5-acre lot.
The James L. Breese House also was known as The Orchard and is now part of the Whitefield Condominium complex. The core of the building incorporates the original 1858 cottage from this property, once owned by a sea captain named Drake. The sprawling, U-shaped house was designed as a summer home and built between 1897 and 1906 on a 30-acre tract. The house is one of the largest homes ever built on the east end of Long Island. A famous architect, Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead & White, designed the house for Breese, a Wall Street broker and good friend of White's. Spectacular gardens graced the rear yard. The next owner, Charles E. Merrill, left the house to Amherst College in the 1950s. A later use of the property was the Nyack School for Boys, which closed in 1977. A developer purchased the vacant house in 1980 and created five condominium spaces within the mansion and built 24 townhouse condos along a curved drive near the 16-acre property's edge. The James L. Breese House was listed in the National Register in 1980.
Dedicated in 2015, this historical marker preserves and shares the story of Pyrrhus Concer, an enslaved man who became free when New York's gradual end to legal slavery allowed for his freedom. He worked a variety of jobs and is best-known as the first African American to visit Tokyo during his service aboard the whaleship Manhattan. Towards the end of his life, he also established a homestead at this location. The inscription on his gravestone begins "Though born a slave he possessed virtues, without which, kings are but slaves."
This museum is located in the historic Rogers Mansion, a home that has been moved many times and expanded significantly from its first construction in 1648 for the family of William Rogers and Ann Hall Rogers. At that time, many of the inhabitants of what would later become Southampton were religious settlers who had arrived at Conscience Point in 1640, The museum combines historic homes and artifacts with interpretive exhibits and an extensive research library and archives dedicated to the history of Southampton and its surrounding areas. The library currently contains over 800 volumes and the archives include a wide range of subjects from account books to family memorabilia.
One of the most distinctive homes in Southampton, Balcastle was built in 1911 and was inspired by a castle in Ireland. The brick and limestone structure features whimsical details, such as a tower and a large, glass-enclosed gazebo. The castle is located in the heart of the town and though it likely appeared strikingly extravagant when it was built, it is now one of a number of estate-like homes in the area. Balcastle is somewhat unusual in that it sits on less than half an acre. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Second Empire style mansion at 300 Hampton Road with the distinctive Mansard style flat roof with dormer windows is the Captain C. Goodale House. The house was built in 1875 and two small rear wings were added in the late nineteenth century. The Goodale family owned the house until 1920 when it was purchased by the Vanderveers. Others owned the house by the 1930s and turned it into a boarding house catering to the region's growing summer visitation. A modern, two-story addition abutting the rear of the building was constructed in the 1980s or 1990s, adjacent to a parking lot. The Captain C. Goodale House was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 1986 for its architecture. The building now holds commercial offices, including those for Cook Maran, an insurance firm.
This Tour is a Driving or Biking Tour.
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Drive from Westhampton eastward to Southampton, stopping at historical museums, mansions, and a lighthouse in between at Quoque and Shinnecock Hills.
