A History of the Incorporated Village

of

Plandome Heights

Researched and written by ARLENE HINKEMEYER VILLAGE HISTORIAN 1978–1996

Updated by ELEANOR M. IMPERATO VILLAGE HISTORIAN

Artwork by JOHN S. ALLEN

Photograph courtesy of the Manhasset Public Library

Big Rock

Mr. Tom Hemphill of 89 Shore Road remembers. . .
as a young boy summering in their house on Shore Road during the 1920s and after. There were only about two other children then in the neighborhood. They sailed and swam; he and Esther Morse had bike races through the bulrushes between Shore Road and the Bay; they climbed on “Big Rock” which was a large glacial deposit up on the hill above what was then the end of Shore Road.

A Brief Summary and Dateline of Manhasset History

To start at the beginning and to put the history of Plandome Heights in perspective:

Perhaps about 20,000 years ago during the Ice Age. . . the beautiful hilly and stony terrain of Manhasset and Plandome Heights was formed by the receding mass of glacial ice.

By about 5000 B.C. there may have been early Indians living on Long Island.

By 1500 we know from remains uncovered in the location of the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club, that the Matinecock Indians peopled the bay area, which they called Sint Sink ( possibly meaning “stone upon stone”). The Matinecock (which may mean “hilly land”) were one of 12 Long Island Indian tribes.

In 1614 Adrian Block, following up on Henry Hudson’s voyage to the New World in 1609, was sent by the Dutch West India Company to explore the area for possible fur trading sites. Block’s ship probably did sail into Schout’s (the Dutch name for it) Bay, because a rough map of Long Island was drawn, but the Dutch never settled the area.

In 1640 the first settlers arrived. Captain Daniel Howe brought some emigrants from Lynn, Massachusetts in a small ship and landed near the southern end of the bay in what is now Manhasset. The settlers said they had a land grant from the British Lord Sterling, but the Dutch, who claimed prior possession, imprisoned them for a time in New Amsterdam (New York City), and then let them go; whereupon they sailed farther out on Long Island and founded the settlement of Southampton.

In 1643 Robert Fordham and John Carmen, two English leaders of a religious sect in Connecticut, bought a strip of Long Island from the Indians and called it “Hempstead.” The price was some large and small kettles, some wampum and cloth, a broadax, knives, gunpowder, lead, and a shirt for the chief. This they paid for all the land running from the North to the South Shore that now includes Hempstead and North Hempstead.

In 1644 Fordham and Carmen confirmed their purchase with the Dutch governor William Kieft (who by this time had decided to encourage British settlement as a hedge against the Indians) and brought about 30 families from Connecticut to settle. These settlers lived in Hempstead and used the Port Washington peninsula as a pasture for their cows, calling it “Cow Neck.” The southern portion (now Manhasset) was later called “Little Cow Neck,” and the bay “Cow Bay.”

By about 1658 part of the now-famous, elusively-situated “cow fence” had been built across the peninsula. Each settler was allowed to pasture a number of cattle in proportion to the number of post-and-rail fence “pannels” he had built. According to records, there were at this time 60 participants in the common pasturelands project, 526 “pannels,” and over 300 beef and dairy cows roaming the hilly ground. Was Plandome Heights part of the enclosure? Probably not, since most historians place the fence at a line running southeast from Leeds Pond, although it could also have been as far south as what is now Northern Boulevard.

In 1664 the British captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch. King Charles II granted Long Island to his brother James, the Duke of York.

In 1674 the former common pasture in Cow Neck was divided among the settlers, also according to the number of fence “panels” each had built, except that 200 acres were given to Captain Matthias Nicoll to defend their common rights. Nicoll was speaker of the first colonial assembly and secretary of the colony. He had already bought much of the present-day Plandome area in 1670 and at his death in 1690 owned 600 acres in the area. He built a home on the land and it may have been during his ownership that the area acquired the name “Plandome”, probably from the Latin words meaning “plain home.” It was probably in 1693 that Joseph Latham built the Plandome grist mill at Leeds Pond on Nicoll’s property. By 1718 Latham was able to buy Nicoll’s land, and the mill was known as Latham’s mill.

In 1675 Richard Cornwell obtained a grant of land in Cow Neck (in present-day Sands Point) and became its first settler. However, Fordham’s group which lived in Hempstead and used Cow Neck for pasturage objected to his being there. One night they tried to demolish his home. Cornwell brought them to trial, where they were fined and his land grant was upheld.

In 1680 was the date chosen for Manhasset’s founding, based upon the belief that this was the year the Willets Court area and north Plandome were first settled.

In 1683 the New York State counties were formed. Hempstead (including North Hempstead) was included in Queens County.

In 1720 the Society of Friends (Quakers) opened the first school and meeting house in the area, on what is now Northern Boulevard. It was rebuilt in 1812, after being burned by the Hessians.

In 1775 North Hempstead (mainly on the Whig or the Patriot side in the Revolutionary War) seceded from Hempstead Town (mainly Loyalist or Tory) when the latter passed a resolution supporting George III. After the war, the New York state legislature officially recorded the secession and in 1784 the first North Hempstead town meeting was held.

In 1801 North Hempstead Turnpike (now Northern Boulevard and formerly an old Indian trail) was opened as a toll road. Plandome Road was a country lane. Most of the shops in Manhasset were clustered in the valley at the head of the Bay. The main street was called Valley Road.

In 1802 Christ Episcopal Church was founded and rebuilt in 1913 after being struck by lightning. In 1815 the Dutch Reformed Church was built, and then rebuilt in 1898 after a fire. St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church was dedicated in 1857 on Plandome Road. The present St. Mary’s on Northern Boulevard was built in 1917.

In 1826 the one-room Manhasset Valley common school was built and used until 1868.

In 1840 the name “Manhasset” was adopted, although no one knows for sure why. It may have come from the name of the “Manhansett” Indians (meaning “island neighborhood”) who lived in the neighborhood of Shelter Island. In 1857 the community of Cow Bay also changed its name to Port Washington.

In 1846 the first local newspaper was published, The North Hempstead Gazette.

In 1868 the 5-room Plandome Road wooden school was built. It was later torn down in 1914 and a larger red brick school was built on the same site in 1915. This was torn down in 1972 and replaced by the Manhasset Village Green.

In 1898 the Long Island Rail Road reached Manhasset and Port Washington. The building of the railroad brought a boom in the growth of Manhasset.

In 1899 Nassau County was created as a separate county out of Queens.

After 1900 several shops started opening up on Plandome Road, which would replace Valley Road as the main street.

In 1907 Town Hall opened on Plandome Road and Manhasset became the permanent seat of North Hempstead Town’s government.

In 1911 Plandome became an incorporated village.

In 1927 the Manhasset Mail was first published.

In 1928 Munsey Park began to be developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; many of its streets were named after American artists.

In 1929 Plandome Heights became an incorporated village.

During the 1930s much of Manhasset was built by housing developers: Munsey Park, North Strathmore, South Strathmore, Shorehaven, Norgate, Strathmore Vanderbilt, Chester Hill (the Bourndale area), and some of Flower Hill.

In 1934 the Manhasset Press was first published.

In 1935 Manhasset High School opened, built on the Henry F. Thompson estate as a Public Works Project during the Depression.

In 1936 Nassau became the first county in New York State to adopt a county charter. It went into effect in 1938.

In 1939 Munsey Park Elementary School was built.

In 1941 the development of the “Miracle Mile” on Northern Boulevard began and was continued after World War II. During the 1940s Strathmore Village and Manhasset Cove were built by housing developers.

In 1946 Manhasset’s first public library opened in a rented storefront on Plandome Road.

In 1952 the present Manhasset Public Library opened on Onderdonk Avenue. Also in 1946, the Church of Our Savior Lutheran was built on Northern Boulevard.

In 1949 the Congregational Church was built on Northern Boulevard, and the present Post Office on Maple Place was built.

In 1951 much of Flower Hill was built.

In 1953 the construction of North Shore Hospital began.

In 1959 Temple Judea was built on Searington Road. In 1968 Shelter Rock Elementary School was built.

In 1979 Plandome Heights celebrated its 50th Anniversary of incorporation.

In 1980 Manhasset celebrated its 300th birthday. A history of the Manhasset area, Manhasset—The First 300 Years, was published to commemorate the event.

In 1984 a 19.7 million dollar bond referendum was passed to expand and renovate the three public school buildings.

In 1985 hurricane Gloria hit Manhasset. There were widespread power outages and fallen trees. Plandome Heights residents of lower Shore Road, The Beachway, and the Tideway were evacuated because of flooding. Also in 1985, the Town of North Hempstead had a Bicentennial Celebration featuring a carnival, a parade, and a fireworks display.

In 1989 a gazebo was built on the site of Manhasset Green which was subsequently renamed Mary Jane Davies Park in honor of this long time community activist.

In 1995 the Manhaset Public Library celebrated its 50th Anniversary.

In 1996 a 21.5 million dollar bond referendum was passed to improve the three public school building systems, to increase instructional space at the Munsey Park School and at the Shelter Rock School, to provide technology for instructional improvement, and to provide the means for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 1997 Leeds Pond was dredged and cleaned up of accumulated silt due to rainwater and storm water runoff.

In 1998 the historic 17th Century Nicoll House in Plandome Manor was demolished.

In 1999 Plandome Heights celebrated its 70th Anniversary of incorporation.

In 2000 major renovations to the Manhasset Station of the Long Island Railroad were completed two years after the 100th Anniversary of its first operation to Manhasset.

In 2001 the Plandome Heights Women’s Club celebrated its 25th Anniversary.

Early Plandome Heights 1680-1920

The history of the entire Manhasset area in the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s is sketchy. There are few major primary sources available from the period other than the 8-volume Records of the Towns of North and South Hempstead. Researching early land ownership is greatly complicated by the fact that the early land grants and deeds describe property boundaries by the cow fence, by some landmark such as a brook, tree, or rock, or by the edge of another man’s property, and the location of these markers is not now known. Research into the period is also greatly confounded by the fact that recent publications on Manhasset history, few as they are, are full of conflicting facts and dates.

Nevertheless, the area we now call Plandome Heights seems to have a rather surprisingly distinguished, though previously unrecognized, history and may also have been the site of one of the earliest homes on Cow Neck.

The Cow Neck Historical Society’s Sketchbook of Historic Homes (1963) lists one historic home in Plandome Heights that was once owned by Mrs. Howard Morse of 69 Shore Road. Unfortunately the home was burned in a fire in 1965, but the Sketchbook describes it as being built about 1710 on land granted to one Nathaniel Pearsall as early as 1686. The earliest known owner, then, of the land that became Plandome Heights was Nathaniel Pearsall.

The Pearsall Family

The Pearsall family was one of the most prominent early families in the town. Henry Pearsall, the father of Nathaniel, had come to Long Island from the colony of Virginia where his father Thomas Pearsall was a leader of the tobacco traders in the Chesapeake Bay area. Henry Pearsall became one of the 50 original proprietors of the Town of Hempstead. He was one of the group mentioned earlier, headed by Fordham and Carmen, which had bought a strip of Long Island from the Indians in 1643, had confirmed it with the Dutch governor Kieft in 1644, had settled in Hempstead, and used Cow Neck for pasturage. Henry Pearsall himself is recorded in the town records of 1657 or 1658 as having 12 “gattes” of the cow fence and 12 head of cattle on Cow Neck. The 3-volume History and Genealogy of the Pearsall Family in England and America states that Henry Pearsall was the sixth largest landholder in the town.

If the Sketchbook is accurate, Nathaniel Pearsall (1649–1703), the eldest of Henry’s four sons, was granted a piece of land in present-day Plandome Heights by the town proprietors in 1686, under the British governor Dongan’s patent. Nathaniel must have been a capable man because from 1672 (when only 23 years old) to 1682 he was voted the clerk of the Town of Hempstead, recording all the town business, and in later years held other important positions as well, such as town assessor and town supervisor. For more than 30 years he was one of Hempstead’s foremost leaders and represented the town in controversies with the governor and with neighboring towns.

As the eldest son, Nathaniel was given the responsibility of dividing his family’s considerable property among himself and his brothers Daniel, George, and Thomas. Although it is not known for certain who the next owner of the Plandome Heights area was, it seems highly likely that it passed down through his brother Thomas’s family. In 1692 it is recorded that as part of the division of the family’s lands, Nathaniel Pearsall gave to his brother Thomas Pearsall “one third part of my wright on Cow Neck.”

If Thomas Pearsall was the next owner of the Plandome Heights land, it is possible that he was the one who built the farmhouse on the land around 1710. It must have been a beautiful spot: a lush green level area right on Manhasset Bay with a bubbling fresh-water spring nearby, perfect for watering cattle. The house could be reached either by boat or by horseback. A steep sandy bluff rose up from the Bay to the east of the house, making it a sheltered and secluded spot.

The home had massive open beams that ran the length of the living and dining rooms and were made of hand-hewn red oak. The oak, also used on the exterior, came from the sturdy red oaks which lined Long Island’s harbors. When Howard and Reba Morse moved into the home in 1923 it still had the original handmade nails and many of the original panes of hand-blown glass.

We do not know how much of the Plandome Heights lands the Pearsall family might have owned. All of the village today only totals about 220 acres. We do know that farms in the North Hempstead area generally varied in size from 70 to 300 acres. We also know that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, farming in the area was of the subsistence type. Settlers provided practically all of their own needs for food, shelter, and clothing.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, farmers began to produce some cash crops— such as apples, potatoes, grains, and milk—for consumption by the local markets and by New York City. From what we know of the Plandome Heights terrain – that it included level stretches and sloping areas and had fresh water springs and streams – we can induce that part of the area may have been more conducive to farming, part to grazing cattle, and part (the sandy bluff) to neither use.

Sometime around 1800 a barn was built on the property and probably functioned as the barn for the Morse farmhouse. It is now the oldest surviving structure in Plandome Heights and is located at 62 Shore Road. More will be said about the history of this house later.

In reading through the town records for the early 1800s we learn a few more facts about the area. In 1819 the Town of North Hempstead (it had seceded from Hempstead in 1775) laid out nine school districts. What is now Plandome Heights was included in District No. 6 which was called the “Head of Cow Neck.” In 1831, when the town changed its road districts from names (our area was called the “head of Cow Neck, western district”) to numbers, what is now Plandome Heights was included in district No. 7. The only real significance of this is that in 1843 it is recorded that Charles W. Pearsall was elected the overseer of highways for district No. 7, which proves that the Pearsall family still owned land in our area. This Charles Willets Pearsall (1802-1861), by the way, whose mother was a Willets, was also the great, great grandson of the previously mentioned Thomas Pearsall, the brother of Nathaniel.

This brings us up to the 1850s after which tracing land ownership is much easier, mainly because of the presence of actual maps. There are maps of Long Island which show the Plandome Heights area in 1797 and in 1852, but the first map available which shows actual land ownership is the Walling map of 1859.

Here we see that the Willets family owned the farmlands directly to the north of what is now Plandome Heights in the present vicinity of Willets Lane. Isaac Sherwood owned the farm directly south, his drive becoming what is now Colonial Parkway. Colonel Andrew A. Bremner owned the farm and home directly south, to the east, mainly in Flower Hill, although his property also included what is now the Bourndale area.

This leaves Charles W. Pearsall and William Haviland as the two main property owners of Plandome Heights in the mid 1800s. It is not known exactly when Haviland first acquired property in the area. It is known that he was elected highway overseer for district No. 7 for the years 1859, 1860, and 1861 and is listed on the 1859 Walling map, so he obviously owned the property before 1859. He may have inherited it when his father Roe Haviland died in 1844.

Charles Willets Pearsall, we know, owned the Plandome Heights lands until his death on May 18, 1861 at which time the property passed to his brother Thomas W. Pearsall (1795-1866). Then it is recorded that a month later on June 26, 1861 Thomas W. Pearsall and his wife Mary Leggett (they were married at the Dutch Reformed Church in Manhasset but lived on a farm in Westchester County) deeded two parcels of land to William Haviland of Manhasset. One was a 29-acre parcel north of Sherwood’s property and one was a 15 ½-acre parcel across Plandome Road where Plandome Court is now. Both parcels were probably contiguous to the land Haviland already owned in the Plandome Heights area.

This seems to mark the end of the Pearsall family’s ownership in Plandome Heights because a Walling map from 1863 shows only William Haviland as a landowner. So for the next few decades the history of Plandome Heights becomes the story of the Haviland family and its descendant Bloodgood Cutter.

The Haviland Family

The Haviland family, like the Pearsall family, was an old landed Long Island family with many branches. It could trace its American roots back to 1653. The main branch of the Haviland family in North Hempstead lived in what is now Little Neck.

William Haviland inherited a great deal of land in North Hempstead when his father Roe Haviland died in 1844. He then engaged in a considerable amount of buying and selling of property. It could be noted here that most of the early landed families did. They may have owned certain lands that stayed in their families over a long period, but other parcels were continuously being bought and sold, which makes research very difficult.

In any case, during the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s William Haviland and his relatives sold one parcel after another, perhaps because of declining family fortunes. During the time Haviland owned the Plandome Heights properties he and his wife Grace may have lived in the farmhouse on the Bay. As seen in the 1859 and 1863 Walling maps, the approach to the house and barn was a curving road along the approximate route of the present Bay Driveway and Shore Road.

While William Haviland was selling numerous parcels, Bloodgood Haviland Cutter was buying. However, Haviland also willed some property to Cutter, including the Plandome Heights lands pictured in this Beers map of 1873. It is not known exactly how Haviland was related to Cutter, but they must have had a fairly close relationship for Haviland to have included Cutter in his will. In age, if not in fact, Haviland was probably something like an uncle to Bloodgood.

Bloodgood Haviland Cutter

The man with the awesome name of Bloodgood Cutter was certainly one of the most colorful figures in Plandome Heights’ past. He was born on August 5, 1817 in Little Neck in his grandfather Roe Haviland’s house (which later became the “Homestead Inn” on Northern Boulevard) and lived there until his marriage. He had only a limited education, mainly from the Bible, at a small school in Lakeville, for his grandfather who raised him thought farm work was more important. His parentage is unclear, for his father is never mentioned; his mother’s maiden name is given as Mary Bloodgood of Flushing. One source reports that his parents died when he was young.

However unclear his roots, he managed to marry well. On November 12, 1840 at the age of 23 he eloped with Miss Emeline Allen, then 16 years old, by putting the proverbial ladder under her window. Her father was opposed to the match. The Allen family owned a great deal of property and a mill in Great Neck. Cutter later acquired the mill, after which Cutter Mill Road is named.

Cutter’s grandfather Roe Haviland died in 1844, leaving him the Prospect Hill farm in Great Neck where he and his wife went to live. During the next few decades Cutter bought much of the Haviland property at auction and many other parcels besides. He acquired his birthplace and several Manhasset properties fronting on Plandome Road. The Plandome Heights properties were willed to him by William Haviland. Then, fulfilling a longtime desire, he booked passage on the steamer Quaker City for a trip to the Holy Land from June to October of 1867.

Bloodgood by this time was 50 years old and well established as a “character.” He had an Irish face, it is said, wore old-fashioned clothes, spoke with a country accent, and was always writing poetry (“doggerel” they called it)! He wrote Bloodgood Haviland Cutter poems for every conceivable occasion: for the Flushing County Fair in 1861, for the laying of the cornerstone of the Flushing Town Hall, for the Quaker barn dance, for the burning of his mill, for the death of William Cullen Bryant, and for many other events.

He wrote poems to numerous ladies on board the ship (his wife did not accompany him on the trip) and a long 130-page poem detailing the entire journey. It so happened that Mark Twain was also aboard the ship and Bloodgood Cutter, with his eccentric ways, became the character the “Poet Lariat” in Twain’s book Innocents Abroad.

This is how Twain described Cutter in his notes for the book:

He is 50 years old, and small for his age. He dresses in homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer with a strange proclivity for writing rhymes. He writes them on all possible subjects and gets them printed on slips of paper with his portrait at the head. These he will give to any man that comes along, whether he has anything against him or not.

And this is the character, the “Poet Lariat,” that Mark Twain created, as quoted from his book Innocents Abroad:

. . .but we have a poet and a good-natured enterprising idiot on board and they do distress the company. The one gives copies of his verses to consuls, commanders, hotel-keepers, Arabs, Dutch, — to anybody, in fact, who will submit to a grievous infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all very well on shipboard, notwithstanding when he wrote an “Ode to the Ocean in a Storm,” in one-half hour, and an “Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the Ship” in the next, the transition was considered to be rather abrupt; but when he sends an invoice of rhymes to the Governor of Fayaland another to the commander-in-chief and other dignitaries in Gibraltar, with the compliments of the Laureate of the Ship, it is not popular with the passengers.

Twain’s evaluation of Cutter seems to have been accurate: that his poetry was atrocious, but that he was a kindly, well-meaning soul. In fact, Cutter was well regarded at home, with a reputation for great honesty and business acumen. Cutter was not at all insulted by the passage. In fact, he was delighted, and for the rest of his life loved to be referred to as the “farmer-poet” and the “Poet Lariat.”

Cutter was such a colorful character that he frequently found himself in the news. In 1880 he took a trip to Ireland, Scotland, England, and France with his wife. On August 9, 1880 on the New York Times obituary page, no less, a short item appeared stating: “The report that Bloodgood Cutter, the distinguished Long Island farmer and ‘Poet Lariat’ in Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, had died in London, is untrue. He is in Scotland with his wife.”

Unfortunately, a death was imminent. On March 24, 1881 his wife Emeline had died. Cutter never remarried. Once in 1893 it was rumored that he had eloped and remarried, and a reporter from the Brooklyn Eagle hastened to his home. Cutter squashed the rumor with the quotable reply that “his only bride was his muse and that he had no intention of committing bigamy.”

Probably one of Bloodgood’s proudest moments came in 1886 when his book, entitled The Long Island Farmer’s Poems was published by N. Tibbals and Sons of New York “for the author,” meaning it was a vanity press. The book contains 500 pages of his poetry, including the long poem “The ‘Quaker City’ Excursion” about his trip to the Holy Land. A small, humorous to the reader, portion of this poem appears below.

Seven doctors I found on board,
Very clever, and men of wealth;
They gave us pilgrims good advice,
So that we could preserve our health.

Of clergymen there were just three;
On board they used to pray and preach;
Of different creeds they all were,
Yet still they did sour’d doctrine teach.

Lawyers and judges too were there,
Captains, and four colonels too;
Correspondents, writing here and there,
In the saloon our voyage through.

One droll person there was on board,
The passengers called him “Mark Twain;”
He’d talk and write all sort of stuff,
In his queer way, would it explain.

About twenty ladies were on board,
Most of them very pleasant too;
And they were all so well informed,
Could converse on subjects old and new.

And very friendly too they were,
Especially if one was sick;
They would get things for your relief,
Their nursing would restore you quick. . . .

It made me feel, though, very queer,
To see Long Island disappear;
As we steamed on it seemed quite small,
Before night could not see it at all.

At two the dinner gong did sound,
In the saloon we gathered round;
The table was pleasing to my view,
With poultry, meats, and puddings too.

The sea makes keen my appetite,
I eat my food with great delight;
When done I go upon the deck,
To enjoy there the grand prospect.

Some up and down the deck do walk
Some sit in groups, and then do talk;
Some sit and read, others do sleep,
And some stand gazing on the deep.

At six o’clock we have our tea,
Then go on deck to view the sea;
At nine o’clock the gong does ring,
To call us then to pray and sing.

Most of the pilgrims did attend,
Thus pleasantly the evenings spend;
Some did not heed religious ways,
But spent their time in idle plays.

About ten retire to my berth,
To bid adieu to scenes of earth;
And as the ship does plunge and roll,
It rocks to sleep my weary soul.

Mrs. Howard Morse of 69 Shore Road remembers . . .
when she was a young girl, she and her mother once visited Bloodgood Cutter in the farmhouse that her parents would later buy. She said the home was full of antique English furniture that Cutter collected. He talked quite a bit about knowing Mark Twain, she recalled.

Bloodgood Cutter died peacefully on September 26, 1906 at the age of 89 and was buried at Zion’s Episcopal Church on Northern Boulevard in Douglaston in the Haviland family’s plot. Cutter left the estate of about $500,000, much of which, including the Plandome Heights lands, he willed to the American Bible Society. A three-day auction was held to dispose of his large collection of antiques and books. Ten years later $150,000 in cash and securities were found in a home safe, along with many unpublished poems. A newspaper account stated about the latter that “the executors were not worried about treasure seekers molesting them.”

The E. Belcher Hyde’s map shows that what the Plandome Heights area looked like in 1906 at Cutter’s death. The maps from 1886 and 1896 show little property change in the immediate area from the previously shown 1873 map, except that at the death of Charles H. Smith, a lawyer, the property which he had bought from Col. Bremner passed to his wife.

This 1906 map is the first map which clearly shows property boundaries and the locations of buildings. In 1906 the Willets estate still lay to the north, and the Sherwood property to the south. Cutter, as you can see, owned all of what would in 1929 become the Incorporated Village of Plandome Heights. For until December 1904, he even owned what is listed on the map as the Gallagher property.

When the Gallagher family bought the land in January of 1905 (another person owned the property for a month) it was level with Plandome Road at the top and then dropped into a steep sandy bluff down to the Bay. For several years the Gallagher Company sand-mined the area. Small barges on the Bay removed the mined sand, and as legend goes, carried it to Manhattan to build the sidewalks of New York.

M. Douglas Neier of Manhasset remembers. . .
how the sand mining was done on the Plandome Heights sand bank. There was a short railroad track at the bottom of the sandy hill in our village. The mined sand from the hill was loaded onto sand cars and an engine pulled them onto a trestle located where The Beachway is now. Then from the trestle, the sand was poured down chutes into the scows or small flat-bottomed barges docked there on the Bay.

The company used Bloodgood Cutter’s farmhouse on the property as an office. After the sand gave out, (and before Plandome Road collapsed, which some people had feared) Gallagher sold the land to the Manhasset Hill Realty Company. It should be added that most of the Gallagher family’s holdings (there were at least two generations of Gallagher brothers in the business) were concentrated in the Port Washington sand pits. By the 1920s they had formed the Goodwin and Gallagher Sand & Gravel Company.

The 1906 map also shows that Mrs. Charles H. Smith’s property had been bought by Alice Grace D’Oench in the early 1900s. She, like Cutter, would figure prominently in Plandome Heights history, even though the area she owned west of the railroad tracks would not be annexed to the village until 1949.

Alice Grade D’Oench

Alice Grace was the oldest of eleven children born to Lillius and William Russell Grace. William Grace, born in Ireland, was the famous international merchant and ship-owner, perhaps best known for the Grace Lines, who controlled most of the trade between the United States and South America in the last quarter of the 19th century. He was also elected the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City in 1880, and was reelected in 1884. In 1897 he and his brother established the Grace Institute in New York City to educate young women in the domestic sciences, stenography, and dressmaking. In 1933 William’s son, Joseph P. Grace, built a branch of this same Grace Institute on Northern Boulevard a little west of Plandome Road. William Grace owned a residence in New York City as well as the beautiful home called “Gracefields,” and property in Great Neck, much of it concentrated around the present-day Grace Avenue. He died in 1904, but his company W. R. Grace and Company has been continued and expanded by his descendants.

Alice Grace, his daughter, was first married to William E. Holloway, and on January 10, 1901, to Albert F. D’Oench, an architect. D’Oench was appointed superintendent of buildings in Mayor Grace’s second administration but resigned in 1889 to continue his independent practice as an architect. Alice and Albert D’Oench had one child, Russell Grace D’Oench. On Flower Hill they built a beautiful English-style estate which was famous for its 150-year old trees and formal gardens. Albert D’Oench died in Manhasset on July 20, 1918 but his wife lived until 1932.

The Long Island Railroad Reaches Manhasset - 1898

At this point, the importance of the Long Island Railroad in Plandome Heights’ developments should be emphasized. The Manhasset area was definitely rural in the 19th century. Then the railroad was extended to Manhasset and Port Washington in 1898. Suddenly, wealthy people such as the Paysons, Whitneys, Munsons, and Masons from New York City had easy access to the beauty of the North Shore, purchased the farmlands, and built magnificent estates. During the first quarter of the 20th century, parts of Manhasset and Plandome Heights, too, became exclusive areas.

In the Plandome Heights locale, the D’Oench estate lay to the east. Plandome, which was incorporated in 1911 to preserve its home rule, lay to the north. In 1909 Benjamin N. Duke of the Duke tobacco family purchased Cutter’s property from the American Bible Society to whom Cutter had willed it. Duke bought the heights – the high level lands to the east and west of Plandome Road – in the name of the “Plandome Heights” Company, and Plandome Heights as a distinct area was born.

Benjamin N. Duke

Benjamin Newton Duke (1855-1929) and his younger brother James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925) were born on a tobacco farm near Durham, North Carolina, to Washington and Artelia Duke. Their father built a factory in Durham in 1874, which became the basis of the family fortune. James later started the manufacturing of cigarettes by machine, which developed the Duke fortunes into one of the largest in the country. By 1890 the Duke brothers had formed the giant American Tobacco Company with James as president and Benjamin as one of the directors. James Duke’s strength was in business organization, while Benjamin Duke was more interested in education and philanthropy. Due to Benjamin’s influence, the Duke family was estimated to have eventually contributed from $90 –$100 million to hundreds of institutions including colleges, hospitals, orphanages, churches, and various charities. Benjamin N. Duke

In 1911, after five years of litigation, the Supreme Court ruled that the American Tobacco Company should be dissolved as a combination in restraint of trade. Benjamin Duke had already begun to divert his capital to other enterprises such as cotton mills, banks, railroads, and hydroelectric power plants in the South, and to real estate in New York and New Jersey. After 1911 he devoted himself exclusively to these enterprises and to his many philanthropic endeavors.

The Plandome Heights Company was one of Benjamin Duke’s real estate ventures. It was rumored within the village that Duke became disenchanted with the community at Tuxedo Park, New York, so he decided to create his own social environment in Plandome Heights.

1910 the Great Neck civil engineering firm of J. W. Jacobus surveyed and plotted the area. Plandome Court was laid out and called the first section of Plandome Heights. Summit Driveway, Summit Place, Grandview Circle, Bay Driveway, and Bayview Circle were laid out and called the second section of Plandome Heights. The names of these streets, one can reasonably surmise, came from their location. Summit Place and Driveway were on the summit of the hill; Grandview Circle was a circular drive with a “grand view” of the Bay; Bay Driveway was the drive running down to the Bay; and Bayview Circle was a circular road giving a close view of the Bay.

Over the next few years several Spanish-style homes, which was a popular style in the early 1900s, were built with white stucco exteriors and red-tiled roofs. A walk through Plandome Heights reveals which of the homes, which villagers now call the “tobacco houses,” must have been part of the originally planned Duke community. On the east side of Plandome Road there are four such homes: one supposedly set aside for the Dukes at 64 Plandome Court; one at 164 Plandome Court; and two side-by-side at 808 and 832 Plandome Road. On the west side of Plandome Road these Spanish-style homes are located at 665 Plandome Road, at 66 and 90 Summit Drive, and at 5, 20 and 33 Grandview Circle. One Duke home, at the entrance to Summit Drive, has since been torn down.

Benjamin Duke never actually lived in Plandome Heights. His home for a few decades, until his death, was at East 89th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Perhaps he had developed the community purely as a real estate investment. Or perhaps he had originally planned to summer here with his friends and then changed his mind. In any case, the Plandome Heights Company retained its investment in the area through 1920, although Duke did not remain its president during that entire period.

Benjamin Duke died in January of 1929, the year that the community he planned became an incorporated village. He was survived by his wife, the former Sarah Pearson Angier of Durham, North Carolina; his daughter Mary Duke Biddle; and four grandchildren. One of his two sons died in childhood; the other, Angier B. Duke, died in 1923. Doris Duke, the well-known tobacco heiress, was his niece, being the only child of his brother James B. Duke.

The Belcher-Hyde map below shows what the Plandome Heights community looked like in 1914. You will notice, however, that the scale is inaccurate: the Plandome Court area is too large, and the undeveloped section is too small.

The Spanish-style home at 64 Plandome Court was owned by George Klackner. The other “tobacco houses” are shown to be owned by Clifford Barber, John J. Hoff, Mrs. Nugent, Helen Weinberg, A.C. Gwymere, F.C. Gilsey, and the Navahoe Realty Company.

You will also notice that there are two connecting lanes on the map between Summit Driveway and Bay Driveway. These may have originally been planned as beach easements so summer residents could reach the popular beach at the foot of Bay Driveway. Even though these streets were never built, they still appear on Nassau County maps today.

Another Belcher-Hyde map from 1914 shows the entire Manhasset area. The scale of Plandome Court in relation to the undeveloped area is still inaccurate.

Here it can be seen that part of Cutter’s former holdings were still listed in his name and part of his former property was owned by Manhasset Hill Realty Company, which had bought it from the Gallaghers.

The Manhasset Hill Realty Company was owned by Henry F. Thompson who acquired a considerable amount of property in Manhasset. Eventually his estate included the large parcel south of the railroad, where Manhasset High School was built; large parcels just north of the railroad by Thompson Shore Road (named after him) and running to the Bay; as well as the entire Manhasset Cove area in Plandome Heights. This latter section included all the land that would later become the Cove-Waterway-Neck-Shore Road area. That story doesn’t start until the 1930s.

In summary, Plandome Heights in the 1920s was a small, exclusive community with probably less than 20 homes, all with spacious interiors and gardens.

In the 1920s this exclusive aim was modified when a limited number of building lots became available. According to Gottfried and Agnes Steigmann who built their home at 115 Plandome Court in 1925, Plandome Heights then had only about 40 homes, but by 1929 the number of homes had approximately doubled. All of this building activity occurred, of course, in the Plandome Court-Plandome Road-Bay Driveway- Summit-Grandview Circle area. Mrs. Steigmann recalls how her children would walk to the Plandome Village Hall school for the early elementary grades, and how much they enjoyed walking down to the Bay in the summertime to go swimming. The Plandome Court roadway was in such bad shape that it became a virtual pond in rainy weather. Seagulls would come in for landings and children sailed their toy boats.

Life in early Plandome Heights sounds idyllic, but in 1929, of course, there were forces on the local scene which caused the peaceful community of Plandome Heights to incorporate in June, and forces on the national scene which brought the Great Crash in October

Plandome Heights Becomes an Incorporated Village – June 11, 1929

The main impetus for the incorporation of most areas has been the desire for home rule, and especially for the power to set local zoning laws. In 1929 when Plandome Heights incorporated, villages still had zoning powers. But the 1938 Nassau County Charter changed this. It stipulated that all existing villages could retain zoning powers but denied the rights to any area that might incorporate in the future. It is significant that since 1938 there has been only one new village in Nassau County.

The general reason Plandome Heights drew up incorporation papers in June 1929 can also be said to be the desire for home rule and the desire to keep taxes low. But specifically there seem to be two main issues which instigated the incorporation.

The first issue involved the zoning of a piece of land just north of Colonial Parkway and Webster Avenue. In the September 27, 1928 issue of Manhasset Mail it was reported that the owners of that property protested the Town Planning Board and Zoning Commission’s suggestion to change it to Class A residential for single family homes. They wanted to build garden apartments on their property instead.

Some Plandome Heights residents organized to protest. The first Plandome Heights Association was formed, with John S. Olney, who lived on Plandome Road, as president and John M. Isaacs of 95 Bay Driveway as secretary. The Association was effective. The Town Board held its final hearing on the matter on February 27, 1929 and ruled that the piece of land in question would be zoned Class A residential. The issue caused some controversy in Plandome Heights, however. Two residents who lived on Plandome Road testified for the apartment houses and were “vigorously opposed” by the Association at the hearing.

The Plandome Heights Association was already geared for action when a second controversial issue appeared: the ever-popular issue of sewers. The Town Board, with the Manhasset Civic Association’s approval, was proceeding early in 1929 to form a sewer district in Manhasset. The only area which protested was Plandome Heights. The Plandome Heights Association circulated a petition against the proposed sewers and this was submitted to the Town Board in March by John Isaacs. “We have no objections to a sewer for Manhasset proper,” said Mr. Isaacs, “so long as it does not include the property of the signers of the Plandome Heights Association petition against it.” Mr. Isaacs also said that if the Town Board agreed to the proposed sewer district, the Plandome Heights Association would move for annexation to the Village of Plandome.

The March 28, 1929 issue of the Manhasset Mail included a letter from Summit Drive resident George Oestreich explaining Plandome Heights’ position:

Plandome Heights is restricted to one-family dwellings and it is our good fortune that our terrain is especially well adapted to the proper functioning of cesspools and septic tanks, due to the subsoil of sand which extends to a depth of 14 ft. and beyond this coarse gravel exists, with the result that we experience no trouble whatever with our present system of disposal. In view of these conditions, surely it would be violating the simplest laws of economy were we to invite additional unnecessary taxation which a sewage system would obviously bring about. On the other hand, should the business section of Manhasset, which has shown such a remarkable development in recent years, require and desire a comprehensive sewer system, we wish them good luck in their undertaking, as most certainly such a decision must be reached before long.

The Manhasset Civic Association met on the evening of April 1. John Isaacs said again that if Plandome Heights was included in the sewer district, it was going to incorporate at once.

On April 8 the Town Board met and voted to form Manhasset’s million dollar sewer district over a minority protest from the Plandome Heights Association. John Isaacs and Plandome Court resident George F. Weimann voiced the Association’s feelings. Weimann said, “Sewers would throw the community wide open for apartment houses,” and “We should put the sewer money into a hospital for this locality.”

After the Town Board’s action, Plandome Heights proceeded with its plans to incorporate. It was discovered that Plandome Heights could not annex itself to the Incorporated Village of Plandome, because the consent of both Plandome and the Town Board were necessary. It seemed unlikely that the Town Board would consent, regardless of how Plandome felt. So Plandome Heights decided to incorporate by itself. Ernest Strong, counsel for Plandome and Plandome Heights, detailed the procedure:

• Peights Association submits to the Town Supervisor a proposition signed by 25 adult freeholders in the village, describing the territory to be incorporated, and enumerating the population. (To incorporate, a village must have 250 people residing within a 3-mile radius.)
• The Association submits to the Town Supervisor a consent form signed by property owners constituting at least one-third of the value of real property in the village, as assessed at the last town assessment.
• The Supervisor holds a hearing on the subject of whether or not the above-filed papers comply with the law.
• The village holds an election on the question of incorporating. Voters must have owned property in the village for at least 60 days before the election.
• The village then is incorporated when the election certificate is signed by the election inspectors and delivered to the Secretary of State, the Tax Commissioner, the County Clerk, and County Treasurer; and when the village map is certified as correct by the Town Supervisor and filed with the Secretary of State.
• Then the Town Clerk appoints a temporary Village Clerk and 3 electors to serve as inspectors. The Village Clerk within 5 days gives notice of an election of officers. An election is held to choose a Mayor and four trustees. Within five dlandome Hays after the election, the Mayor and trustees meet, and appoint a clerk and treasurer.

It was quite an involved procedure. Someone, perhaps the Town, circulated a sheet addressed to “Mr. Taxpayer of Plandome Heights” asking “Have you carefully and seriously studied the question of incorporation upon which you are to vote on Tuesday, the 11th. Do you not know that this is a matter of such grave importance that it should not be acted upon hastily or without thorough knowledge of the responsibilities?” Then it discussed three main issues: 1. Taxation and home rule: “Are you ready to pay increased taxes without increased benefits?” 2. Sewers: “Sewers are bound to come. Do you prefer to have them installed by a local commission . . . or . . . by a general commission, over which you will have no control?” 3. Zoning: Do you not know that if you form a village and propose to adopt zoning ordinances, that you must provide a business district in the most reasonable and logical place?” The broadside ended by exhorting the villagers to “VOTE ‘NO’ upon the proposition to incorporate your territory into a village.”

On June 11, 1929 the election on the question of incorporation was held at the residence of John Isaacs, 95 Bay Driveway. The outcome was 35 ballots for incorporation and 17 against. Plandome Heights was now an incorporated village.

The next month on July 17, Plandome Heights villagers held an election to choose their first Mayor and Board of Trustees. Those elected were: Mayor, John Olney; and Trustees, John Isaacs, Frank Haley, W. W. Lancaster, and Gottfried Steigmann.

In concluding the story of how Plandome Heights became incorporated, it must be said that Plandome Heights can take some of the responsibility (either praise or blame, depending on how you look at it) for the fact that Manhasset was never sewered. It was the first area which voiced strong opposition and “seceded” from the Town to escape inclusion in the sewer district.

In October of 1929, however, the Manhasset Board of Sewer Commissioners issued a report showing that the sewer system would cost considerably more than $1 million or $.50 a front foot per year. A month later Munsey Park also decided to incorporate, to avoid higher taxes with the coming of the sewers.

With the loss of both Plandome Heights and Munsey Park which together totaled over one-fourth of the district’s assessed property valuation, the Town Board recommended in January of 1930 that the Manhasset Sewer District be dissolved.

Besides, the Depression had also come.

Plandome Heights Develops – 1930-2001

During the 1930s there was little growth or construction in Plandome Heights because of the Depression. Oddly enough, this is when many of the other residential areas in Manhasset were being developed. The 1930 census listed the village population as 265; by 1940 it had only risen to 317. One of the first acts of the village leaders was to pass a new building restriction ordinance since the old one was due to expire on January 1, 1930. So the village trustees held hearings and adopted a Village Building Zone Restriction Ordinance on November 19, 1929. Some of the basic provisions were: a minimum lot area of 9000 square feet, a minimum frontage of 60 feet, a building area not to exceed ¼ of the lot area, and total side yards not less than 30 feet. Only single family detached dwellings would be permitted. These restrictions meant, of course, that apartments could not be built in Plandome Heights, the fear of which had been one of the reasons for incorporation.

A second major task the village leaders tackled was to resurface the roads, which were said to be “in deplorable condition.” Bay Driveway had been paved by the Town early in 1928 and sidewalks had been added later that year. But the other streets needed paving. So a $30,000 bond issue was voted for the work, and during the summer of 1930 Plandome Court, Summit Driveway, Summit Place, and Grandview Circle were paved with concrete and given concrete curbs.

In 1931 the village held an election and John ( Jack) Isaacs became Mayor, a position he ably held until 1945. His wife Edith Wiles Isaacs became Village Clerk. Both were dedicated and active members of the Manhasset and Plandome Heights communities and offered their home at 95 Bay Driveway for village elections and meetings.

During the years of the Isaacs’ term of office most of the village business, as we shall see, concerned the residential planning and development of the area. But there were a few other issues that did surface.

In the fall of 1939 a rat problem was noticed. Mrs. Isaacs sent a postal card to all residents asking them to report the incidence of any rats. A number of residents sent back affirmative replies. Some acknowledged the presence of rats in their own cellars or greenhouses. Some reported the presence of rats in their neighbors’ yards. One resident, a rather humorous member of the New York Stock Exchange, reported that “ I have seen several of the human species from time to time on my property but no low animal life.” The most clever response was from a lawyer on Bay Driveway who wrote a one-page play in the form of a “deposition.” Under strict questioning the “examiner” was able to learn that the “deponent” had seen not millions of rats, or even thousands of rats, but only two rats, or possibly even the same rat twice. The deponent stated his excitement that there would be a “a war against rats in Plandome Heights, just like the war against the Rat over in Europe.” The “rat war” seems like a humorous issue today, but it was handled seriously by the village and “won.”

In July of 1941 the Village Board of Trustees passed a resolution opposing the building of a huge two million gallon oil storage tank in Great Neck on the Bay. The Board’s reasoning was that it would have a deteriorating effect on property values in the village and would be a serious fire hazard to the community. The storage tank, however, was built.

Bernie Gutman of 15 Bay Driveway remembers. . .
during world War II when gas was rationed and people couldn’t go out driving on the weekends, the village organized cookouts at the end of Bay Driveway.

These were some of the local issues that the village leaders had to contend with during the 1930s and early 1940s. But probably the biggest responsibility was in guiding the development of the undeveloped acres in the village north of the Bay Driveway homes.

The Development of Manhasset Cove

As was mentioned earlier, the undeveloped section north of Bay Driveway between Plandome Road and the Bay was owned by the Manhasset Hill Realty Company, and was part of the estate of Henry F. Thompson (hence the reason for the property often being called the “Thompson property”).

During the 1920s the Manhasset Hill Realty Company sold several parcels along Shore Road to Alice Hemphill, Howard M. Morse, Lewis Howland Brown, and Richard Snowden Andrews. The approximate location of their properties was as follows:

Alice Hemphill was the first to own land in this location. In February 1922 her father, Charles Dayton Silleck, bought her the large parcel extending east from the Bay, and in 1934 purchased another contiguous parcel. The Hemphills built a summerhouse on the property at the point where Shore Road then ended. Two brick gateposts stood at the entrance of the circular drive in front of their home. The Hemphills owned this parcel until 1968–69 when they sold most of their land to a developer who tore down the house. On the plot they retained overlooking the Bay, they built a lovely home at 89 Shore Road.

Howard M. Morse, a patent attorney in New York City, and his wife Reba purchased two waterfront parcels in November 1922. Their land included the historic Plandome Heights home discussed earlier which was built on the Pearsall property about 1710. To recapitulate, the home was later owned by Bloodgood Cutter, became an office for the Gallagher sand company, and then was sold to Henry F. Thompson. Thompson partially rebuilt the house but never lived there. The Morses modernized the house by adding electricity, plumbing, and other conveniences. The exterior was painted white with butter yellow shutters. Photographs of the home reveal the lovely setting in a lush green open spot on the Bay with natural springs of pure water nearby. Unfortunately the home burned in a fire in 1965 and another home was built in its place at 69 Shore Road.

Howland Brown, a member of the New York Stock Exchange, purchased both waterfront and upland parcels in 1924 and 1929. On the waterfront parcel he built a dock for his large yacht. Manhasset Bay was deeper and wider then. His upland property included a gardener’s cottage (where during the 1920s a man by the name of John Dietz made his living by hiring out horses) and a large barn which dated from about 1800. The barn and the Morse farmhouse were probably all part of the farm owned in the 1800s by the Pearsalls and then by William Haviland and by Bloodgood Cutter. This structure is now the oldest surviving building in Plandome Heights. A spicy bit of news is that during the Prohibition era in the 1920s and early 1930s the barn was used to store liquor that was smuggled in from the Bay. The “speakeasy,” which still exists, even had two slot machines. Entrance to the underground room, which may have originally been a root cellar, was probably gained through a trap door.

Mr. Brown eventually converted the barn into a large white-pillared home and also expanded the cottage. Both still have a commanding view of the Bay tucked in behind new homes at 62 and 66 Shore Road.

Snowden Andrews bought his parcel in December of 1928 from the Manhasset Hill Realty Company. He built a home in the southern colonial style with tall white pillars similar to Brown’s, on the hill where Willow Court is now. The developers who bought his land in 1966 razed it when they built the Willow Court homes.

By 1931 the executors of the Thompson estate who controlled the Manhasset Hill Realty Company were planning to dispose of their remaining property in Plandome Heights. They printed a folder, improved the rather steep bluff east of Shore Road by grading, and set the price from the remaining 20 acres of waterfront and upland property at $350,000, plus $25,000 for Thompson’s son’s home on the corner of Bay Driveway and Shore Road. It seems that the property was not sold because it remained in the hands of the Manhasset Hill Realty Company during the 1930s and eventually was partially developed by them.

As early as 1931, however, when the Village Planning Board heard that the property was on the market, it was poised for its coming responsibility. In 1937 the Manhasset Hill Realty Company submitted a proposed subdivision map of the area to the Planning Board. The plot plan showed a rather congested number of homes on three streets: Wayside Run, Littleworthe Lane and Dedham Byway. The plan was not approved.

By 1939 the Planning Board was chaired by Walter Burr and included Ada Carleton, R. Snowden Andrews, Leonard Wickenden, and Edward Breen. They began to meet almost weekly. They faced an awesome responsibility in guiding the village’s development and their story is recounted below.

On January 12, 1939 the Board rejected another proposed development submitted by the Manhasset Hill Realty Company. This plan included over 92 plots and did not comply with the Village Zoning Ordinance requiring a minimum plot size of 9000 square feet, and concrete roads and sidewalks. On January 18 Mr. N. Boyce Jenkins of Sands Point, the builder, submitted another plot plan, which was also rejected because it didn’t even present a true outline of the property.

Then John Isaacs, the mayor, had a plot plan prepared by the Manhasset Civil Engineers and submitted it to the Planning Board on January 24. This plan called for two parallel curved streets leading down to Shore Road, with concrete pavements, curbs, and sidewalks. It was approved.

However, not for long. On February 11, the Village Planning Board denied building permits to the Manhasset Hill Realty Company for the first 13 lots. On February 14 some board members resigned, and John Isaacs and W. Arthur Lee were appointed in their place. A resolution was passed not to file the January 24 plan. Another resolution was passed, strictly enumerating village building requirements for streets, curbs, sidewalks, and storm basins.

On February 28 Mr. Jenkins submitted a tentative plot plan, just for the Cove Drive area, and agreed to conform with village requirements for streets, lights, and drainage. On March 16, he returned with the final map entitled Manhasset Cove. The Planning Board passed a resolution that since the plan generally met the Board’s requirements, a public hearing would be held on March 27.

At the hearing the information was released that the property would be developed by the Jan Rock Corporation, whose main incorporators were Harold E. Rounds of Kings Point and N. Boyce Jenkins of Sands Point. The development would be called Manhasset Cove; colonial homes would be built on lots of at least 9000 square feet in four sections. Immediately after the hearing the Planning Board met and approved the plan. The next month in April 1939, the Jan Rock Corporation was changed to the Manhasset Cove Corporation, and the building of the first eleven homes on Cove Drive began. The article below, detailing the development, appeared in a New York newspaper.

As it turned out, the Manhasset Cove Corporation never realized its rather grandiose plans. Either because of financial conditions or because of World War II, it was able to build only the first eleven homes on Cove Drive. During the years 1940–43, the Manufacturers Trust Company held a lien on the Corporation’s property, and the village taxes were unpaid.

As a result, in March of 1944 a land auction was held at Mayor Isaacs’ home. Patrick and Cecilia Callan succeeded in buying all of the undeveloped portion of Manhasset Cove. However, the layout of the area had to be replanned since in February 1940, R. Snowden Andrews had bought two strips of land abutting his property, which cut into a proposed street on the 1939 plot plan. So during 1944, 1945, and 1946 the area was surveyed again and replanned. Instead of two parallel streets running down to Shore Road, the present street layout was designed, with The Neck and The Waterway joining Cove Drive.

After World War II, when building materials were plentiful again, Callan Builders Inc. built the brick homes on The Waterway, The Neck, and lower Cove Drive. Some of the interior designs were similar to the original Manhasset Cove homes on upper Cove Drive.

Then in 1948 the Planning Board approved the layout of another pocket of homes near Shore Road. The street was at first called Andrews Place in honor of R. Snowden Andrews but then, in keeping with the unofficial village policy of naming a street after its geographical area, was named The Beachway. A narrow strip of land at the end of the Beachway was set aside to provide public access to the beach. Callan Builders built these 10 homes on The Beachway and Shore Road during 1948.

Edna Cooper of 2 The Beachway remembers. . .
the wonderful Fourth of July celebrations the Beachway residents used to enjoy. They closed off the top of the street with sawhorses and had a block party on the circle. Bridge tables were set up, everyone brought food, and there was music, singing and fireworks for the children.

The Beachway residents were a cohesive group. They even formed their own organization called “The Beachway Folk” and had a letterhead printed. John Mezey of 15 The Beachway was President; “Hap” Lyons of 9 The Beachway was Vice-President; and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pickles were Treasurer and Secretary, respectively. Another resident was Cecilia Callan who moved to 23 The Beachway from Munsey Park after her husband, the builder of Manhasset Cove, died in 1949. In 1953 when the roadwork and drainage work on the street was completed, the Beachway residents petitioned the Planning Board to be recognized as part of the Incorporated Village of Plandome Heights. They joined the village that year.

The Development and Annexation of Chester Hill

In 1949, the year of the 20th Anniversary of the incorporation of the village of Plandome Heights, the village was greatly enlarged by the annexation of an area called Chester Hill.

No one seems to know for sure why this area, leading up to Flower Hill, was called Chester Hill. It may have been named after a Manhasset landowner named John Chester. Since the early 1900s the land had been part of the Alice Grace D’Oench estate. It was a lovely grassy plain with a brook and pond on the eastern end. In March of 1932, when Mrs. D’Oench died, the property went in trust to Joseph T. Grace, William R. Grace, and Adolf Garni. Then in 1937 these trustees sold the land to a development company called Chester Hill Manhasset Inc. The area, almost 32 acres, was surveyed, and the plot plans were approved by the Town of North Hempstead’s Planning Board.

It was divided into three vertical sections. Sections A and B were developed in 1938-40; as it turned out Section C was not developed until the 1950s. The meandering brook at the eastern end of the property was relocated within a 12-foot reserved strip. Another strip of land, here labeled the D’Oench Estate

Chester Hill Development Plan

Right of Way, was reserved for a road going over the railroad tracks to Flower Hill. Originally a road called Lake Side Drive was planned around the lake, but this never materialized. The new streets were called Bourndale Road North, Bourndale Road South, Chester Drive, Winthrope Road, and Brookwold Drive. Chester Drive undoubtedly was named after Chester Hill. The Bourndales were probably named after the beautiful words “bourn(e)” and “dale” meaning “a stream” in “a vale.” Likewise, Brookwold Drive seems to have been named after its geographic area: “brookwold” means “a brook” on “an unwooded plain.” Webster Drive had already been built in the late 1920s as part of a section called Manhasset Gardens, which comprised the streets of Lindbergh, Gaynor, Vanderbilt, and Webster. These streets were named after famous people who either visited or had relatives living here, Webster being named after Daniel Webster.

Oleg Gaydebouroff of 164 Plandome Court remembers. . .
that growing up in Plandome Heights in the 1930s was something special. He used to play Indian by making bows and arrows with real arrowheads that he found on the area that became Cove Drive. He found horseshoes buried on his own property. He and his friends would also play on D’Oench’s farm, teasing the bulls and cows, catching sunfish and pollywogs in the pond, and playing “donkey baseball” on the field by the railroad track. This game consisted of hitting the ball, then jumping on a donkey and trying to get it to run the bases before being tagged out!

In 1949 most of Chester Hill, except for Section C, had been developed. In that year as a result of a Manhasset Civic Liaison Committee’s report, all of the unincorporated areas adjoining the Plandome Road business district began to discuss incorporation. This included Norgate, Shorehaven, and Chester Hill. At first they discussed incorporating as separate villages. On May 10, 1949, at a meeting held at Manhasset High School, they discussed incorporating as one village. After the meeting Plandome Heights Mayor W. Arthur Lee discussed annexing Chester Hill to Plandome Heights.

On May 17 nearly 150 people attended a mass meeting of Chester Hill residents to discuss the proposed annexation. At the meeting’s end they unanimously approved a resolution to petition the Town Board to join Plandome Heights. At a meeting the same night Shorehaven residents also voted unanimously to petition to join Plandome Heights. However, the latter annexation movement did not proceed because the village law was interpreted to exclude the annexation of another unincorporated area which was not contiguous to the village.

Over 90% of the eligible voters of Chester Hill who represented over 90% of the assessed property signed the petition for annexation. On July 26 a majority of the Town Board consented to the annexation. Now it was up to the residents of Plandome Heights.

The Plandome Heights Civic Association, whose president was W.E. Himsworth, issued a 2-page letter on the question. Reasons given in support of annexation were:

1. It would improve our chances of zoning control on the vacant property on the east side of Plandome Road just north of Webster Avenue.
2. We would be able to control parking on Plandome Road at this point.
3. It would strengthen our position as a village by increasing its size and spreading our community of interest.

In fact, it was pointed out, the annexation of Chester Hill would increase both the population and the assessed value of the village by almost exactly 50%. Chester Hill had a population of 311; Plandome Heights had 628. Chester Hill had 92 homes with a total property assessment of $902,000; Plandome Heights had 157 homes with $1,804,000 worth of property.

The Plandome Heights permissive referendum to annex Chester Hill was held on September 7, 1949 at Mayor Lee’s house at 101 Summit Drive. It passed and by September 14, when all the necessary papers had been filed, Chester Hill officially became part of the Incorporated Village of Plandome Heights.

During the 1950s the rest of Chester Hill was developed. The western end, Section C on the plot plan, was an empty lot fronting on Plandome Road and for many years had been a source of irritation to neighbors because some people used it for parking or for dumping rubbish and grass cuttings. So in 1952 plans were drawn and approved for a subdivision of 10 homes called Manhasset Grove, which would be built by the P.C.R. Development Corporation. Also that year, Reverend Donald Weymouth, pastor of the Manhasset Baptist Church, made plans to purchase the southern part of the lot. His church had formerly held services at the Onderdonk House in Manhasset but now needed a larger building. Rev. Weymouth felt that his church would also provide a good buffer between the Plandome Road stores and the residential village of Plandome Heights. In 1953–54 the church launched a building fund campaign, and soon after the new church was built.

The last remaining section of Chester Hill to be developed was the extreme eastern end. Lake Side Drive and the homes around it were not built as originally planned. Instead, in the late 1950s Nassau County acquired the property for a water recharge basin and then, after protestations by Chester Hill residents, built a lovely park around the pond to cover up the necessary pipes.

Land Development 1950-2001

In 1954 Homestead Properties purchased the Bayview Circle area and proceeded to build and sell homes there in 1955–56. In April of 1956 the company sold the remaining land to Otruba Homes, Inc.

In the 1960s the large parcels fronting on Shore Road were developed in two sections. First Snowden Andrews sold his 2-acre plot in 1966 to the Lyneti Construction Company of Albertson. His lovely white-pillared home on the hill was razed and the Tivel Construction Corporation built the large Willow Court homes. The name of this development was Heritage at Plandome Heights.

Then in 1968 the Paddons and Hemphills sold their plots, which totaled 5 acres, to another developer who sold the land to the Plandome Heights Development Corporation, which built the large Country Estates homes on upper Shore Road. In the process the Hemphill’s summer home was razed, and a new one was built overlooking the Bay at 89 Shore Road. The Paddon’s home at 62 Shore Road, formerly owned by Howland Brown, was preserved, as was the home next to it at 66 Shore Road.

It could be added that in 1969 the tiny triangle of land on Plan