Kings Park Psychiatric Center among 7 historic Long Island sites on endangered list

A power plant in Riverhead was one of the earliest sources of electricity on Long Island — but it’s now vacant and deteriorating.

A lighthouse off Long Island Sound in Kings Point — one of the last offshore in the upper mid-Atlantic to be built of brick and stone — is also threatened by neglect and deterioration.

Those are two of the seven historic sites on an endangerment list created by a preservation group in the hope of keeping Long Island history alive for another generation. The sites span from near the Queens line to the East End of Long Island — Brentwood, Huntington, Kings Park, North Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Riverhead and Smithtown.

The locations were selected by the group Preservation Long Island  following nominations from the public and local historical societies. The selections were based on their historic significance, how severe the threat is and the impact such a listing could have on efforts to protect the site.

The U.S. government can acquire a particular site — the Statue of Liberty, for example — and maintain, operate and protect it, but there are no nationwide rules for historic preservation. In almost every instance, it's a local matter.

For instance, in New York City, a citywide commission has jurisdiction to designate a building as a landmark and protect it from being demolished or even changed absent specific permission. The impetus for those protocols was the destruction in the mid-1960s of the old Beaux-Arts style Penn Station, to be replaced by a subterranean rat-like maze, reviled to this day.

On Long Island, the power to protect historic sites rests with local governments — dozens and dozens of them. And there are no uniform rules.

“On Long Island, some local governments have very strong protections, while others have none at all,” said Tara Cubie, a preservation and advocacy director at Preservation Long Island, which is based in Cold Spring Harbor.

Of the 109 or so local governments in Suffolk and Nassau counties, only a third have any form of a historic preservation law, according to the group.

Oyster Bay, Riverhead, North Hempstead and Huntington, for example, have local landmark laws protecting designated sites from demolition or inappropriate alteration, she said.

There are approximately 150 National Register listed buildings in Nassau and over 300 in Suffolk, though the figures exclude local landmarks and there is no centralized list, according to Cubie. The list came about in 1966, and since then over 95,000 properties have been added, according to the National Park Service.

Being on the list is honorary and can unlock benefits such as tax credits, but there is no protection necessarily from demolition or alteration. And being on the list can help advocates lobby localities to protect a site. 

Cornell University's Tom Campanella, a professor of city and regional planning, said in New York State, particularly in New York City and parts of Long Island, "The historic preservation sensibility is one that's generally progressive, [on the] liberal side," he said, "and more advanced in terms of historic preservation efforts."

The endangerment list by Preservation Long Island includes:

• Eliphalet Whitman House, circa 1736; On Jericho Turnpike in Smithtown — and now part of Caleb Smith State Park. The house, consisting of a barn, work shed and farmhouse, was constructed for tanners and owners of a shoe factory. It’s a contributing structure to the Wyandanch Club Historic District, named for a hunting club formed in the late 19th century, mostly for Brooklynites. The club has since been dissolved and the site became a park in the 1960s. 

• The Perkins Electric Generating Plant in Riverhead is the last remaining structure of a woolen manufacturer in the town. Founded by an immigrant from England who arrived in 1828, the company became a family business. It was one of the first electricity companies on the Island. 
• The Stepping Stones Lighthouse, circa 1876; in North Hempstead, warned mariners of rocks and a shoal that extend into Long Island Sound from Kings Point. It's crumbling, Cubie said.

• Kings Park Psychiatric Center was open from the middle of the 1800s to 1996. It once held over 9,000 patients at its peak, with 150 buildings, farming, food preparation and even its own power plants and railroad spur. It was abandoned decades after a new approach to mental illness focused on local care and medication instead of institutionalization. 
• Coindre Hall Boathouse in Huntington was built circa 1910 for pharmaceutical magnate George McKesson Brown as part of his estate. The estate reflects what has been called a “rural tranquility and natural habitat.” The boathouse has been vacant for almost 20 years, Cubie said, and is boarded up and deteriorating.

• The Shutt House in Brentwood was constructed in the mid-1800s. Its original owners partook in social movements of the time, and “found expression” in the Utopian Village of Modern Times, what would become Brentwood. The Shutts helped develop Brentwood in the 1900s. The house has been proposed for demolition.

• The Mill Pond House in Oyster Bay is one of the oldest places to make the list, having been built in the late 1600s or early 1700s. The builders were the Townsend family, one of the early settlers in the town that built a nearby mill for grains. Newsday reported that the house has been scarred by neglect, water damage and a fire in 2014.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.