My block on LI:  East Northport couple saw their cul-de-sac grow out of a potato field

When Stuart and Viviane Koenig discovered that a free Greek dinner of spinach pie and pastitsio had been delivered to their doorstep in mid-March, it was a delicious lockdown surprise, but not necessarily unexpected for the original residents of Claudine Court in East Northport.

"We’re very friendly with the neighbors," said Stuart, 81, a retired Bellmore elementary school teacher, who has lived on Claudine Court since it was first developed in the early 1970s. He and his wife, Viviane, 71, a retired Cablevision logistics manager, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and 50 years of living on the block in June, are as accustomed to the kindness of neighbors as they are to the flavors of Greek cuisine.

"Pastitsio happens to be my favorite food," said Viviane, who first tasted the dish made with macaroni, chop meat, cheese and béchamel sauce when she was a girl growing up in an Italian Jewish family in Egypt.

It turned out all the families on Claudine Court had been treated to a free Mediterranean supper by Colleen Odore, a professional chef who lives next door to the Koenigs.

"I love to cook, and we redid our kitchen, so I always make a lot," explained Odore, 47, who had lost her chef instructor position at Sur La Table to the lockdown, and is now working as a caterer and Instacart chef.

Enduring friendships

But such neighborly gestures are not uncommon on the court. In the winter, Odore’s teenage children regularly shovel snow from the Koenigs’ driveway. Another neighbor, who works as an engineer, volunteers to fix their TV and computer.

Good neighbors, enduring friendships, a man cave crammed with mid-20th century nostalgia and a women’s book club are all part of life on the cul-de-sac lined with Dutch Colonials in the hamlet of East Northport, an unincorporated area in the Town of Huntington. Neighbors regularly gather (in non-pandemic times) in backyards to celebrate birthdays and graduations. Nearby beaches, public schools and downtown Northport’s Main Street add to the desirability of Claudine Court homes.

"Houses don’t get for-sale signs on them, they go for sale by word-of-mouth," said Odore, who with her husband, Angelo, 55, a financial adviser, bought their house in 2013 after renting nearby.

The houses on Claudine Court were built in the early 1970s. The development was part of a housing boom that transformed East Northport’s rural farmland into modern suburbs, said Town of Huntington historian Robert Hughes. Today, East Northport’s population has grown to more than 20,000, making it the Township of Huntington’s fourth most populous community after Commack, Huntington Station and Dix Hills, according to statistics provided by the town planning department.

Home values appreciate

Real estate values continue to climb in East Northport. There were 292 closed residential real estate sales in the year ending Sept. 1 at an average price of $534,111, up from $515,783 on 281 sales the year before, according to OneKey MLS. On Claudine Court, home values range from $448,344 to $514,715, according to Zillow estimates.

That’s more than 10 times what the Koenigs paid for their home in 1971.

At the time they were both living with their parents — Stuart in Freeport, and Viviane, whose family immigrated to the United States in 1968, in Brooklyn. Stuart had grown up in Brooklyn in the 1940s and graduated from Hofstra University in the 1950s. While an undergraduate, he participated in Hofstra Shakespeare festivals along with fellow Hofstra alumni (and future Hollywood legends) Francis Ford Coppola and Madeline Kahn. He and Viviane met in 1970 at a party in Manhattan, got engaged that September, and soon went house hunting.

They saw a model home they liked that the builder had in Deer Park, put down a deposit and closed on their Dutch Colonial at a price of $44,999.

Then they watched their home being built, driving out to East Northport every weekend in Stuart’s blue Galaxie 500.

"The first time we saw the foundation, we danced around it," Viviane recalled.

They moved in after marrying on June 27, 1971, and honeymooning in Israel. They put mezuzas, a symbol of their Jewish faith, in bedrooms and on doors to the outside. And they greened up the dirt front yard with sod. More houses rose on the block that year and other families moved in.

"When we moved in, we didn’t know anybody, but little by little, we made friends with the people around us," Stuart said.

"I did not drive, never wanted to," Viviane said. But Stuart convinced she needed to learn. "He taught me in the humongous Galaxie 500 in the Modell’s shopping center, which was closed on Sundays."

Modell’s, which became their go-to neighborhood store, closed this year due to bankruptcy.

They enlarged their home, putting an extension over the two-car garage for two more bedrooms and a bathroom — space they needed to raise two children: a daughter, Deborah, who lives in Germantown, Maryland, and a son, Daniel.

'Felt very safe'

Daniel, now 43, who lives in Sunnyside, Queens, spoke nostalgically of the old neighborhood. "As a kid, it felt very safe to live in a court,'' he said. ''We had a giant area to play games, hide and go seek, tag and snowball fights in the winters without fear of a car running us down." Northport High School, from which he graduated in 1995, was close enough to walk to.

He and his childhood best friend, who lived on nearby Owen Place, let their imaginations run wild pretending to be "everything from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to GI Joe," Daniel said. "My hero at the time was Indiana Jones and I remember my best friend and I used to take turns pretending we were him, looking for long lost artifacts on neighbors' lawns."

Stuart Koenig’s own fedora-sporting hero, Humphrey Bogart, is immortalized in his man cave, a bedroom converted into a repository for 20th century sports and movie memorabilia.

"My favorite movie is ‘Casablanca’," Stuart said on a recent afternoon as he stood amid his collection, which features a cutout of Bogie and a replica of the black bird from the star’s 1941 classic, "The Maltese Falcon."

With a little help from Viviane, Stuart also collects 78 rpm records and Brooklyn Dodgers keepsakes. "My wife goes to garage sales and goes on Amazon and buys me most of the stuff I have hanging in my walls," he said.

Viviane has her own hobby: a book club formed by women who live on the cul-de-sac. After one Zoom meeting, they recently resumed front yard gatherings where, Viviane said, "We’ll talk about a writer or a book series — bestsellers, mostly."

As the Koenigs enjoy their status as Claudine Court’s pioneers, other Dutch Colonials on the block have changed owners two or three times during the last half-century. Neighbors have added extensions and switched out wood shingles for vinyl siding.

The Koenigs added solar panels and plan to remove the carpeting from the living room and dining room and refinish the wood floors underneath.

Happy to be aging in place, they look forward to a return to normal as the block’s elders.

"After the pandemic is over," Viviane said, "we look forward to gathering some friends and family again for backyard parties."

Said Stuart: "When we originally came in, we were the newlyweds. Now we’re the senior citizens on the block."

If you'd like to share how your block on Long Island has changed over the years, email Nirmal Mitra at nirmal.mitra@newsday.com. Please include before-and-after pictures if you have them.