Two historic Islip homes for sale together or apart

Two properties next to each other in Islip, both with historic homes and totaling 2 acres, are being offered for sale separately and together. The first, listed for $990,000, was once part of the Doxsee estate, owned by James Harvey Doxsee, founder of the Doxsee Clam Factory. The factory was sited where the Islip Town dock is now, according to listing agent David Sanders of Eric G. Ramsay Jr. Associates.

The estate was sold to the Russell family in 1920, which developed a farm on the property.

The Russells turned the Doxsee home, a clapboard structure built in 1865, into a Spanish Revival-style home and used it as a guesthouse. The house has five bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms and the property features an in-ground pool.

The Russells also built a gardener's cottage on the property, the other home for sale. The two-bedroom, two-bathroom house, which has rustic wooden beams on the ceiling, is on the market for $649,000. The second property also has an 18-foot-tall dovecote, which is used to house pigeons, as well as a carriage house and greenhouse.

The current owners, Stephen Kreutzer, president of the Historical Society of Islip Hamlet, and Richard Plazza, purchased the older home in 1980 and the gardener's cottage in 2000, restoring both and expanding the cottage. The properties are also for sale together for a combined asking price of $1.59 million.

"It's quite unique," Plazza says of the property. "The cottage itself is just adorable. It looks like something in the south of France. The main house, although it's Spanish Revival, reminds me of Tuscany. We've loved fixing it up. It's been a labor of love."