From Gingerbread to Pancake House

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

Spring a century ago not only brought the trees and shrubs into bloom, it also brought out the McQueen family to pose in front of their handsome Victorian gingerbread home at 6281 Northern Blvd. in East Norwich.

The man holding the horse in the above photo was probably Frank McQueen, who served as Oyster Bay town clerk from 1905-08, according to his great-granddaughter, Sally DeGroot of Oyster Bay. McQueen's daughter, Mildred, married Alvin Hutchinson, uniting two prominent old North Shore families. This glass-plate photo of a bucolic Route 25A -- part of Long Island's Heritage Trail -- is one of many old family portraits in the Oyster Bay law office of DeGroot's brother, attorney Richard Hutchinson.

Today's passersby pause on Northern Boulevard not to smell the flowers, but to smell the pancakes. There's now an International House of Pancakes where the McQueen house stood. And the site has a history of restaurants: Before it was an IHOP, it was a Bob's Big Boy, and before that, a Howard Johnson's.