A Storied Old Cottage

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SITTING at the southern end of West Meadow Beach, at the entrance to Stony Brook Harbor, is a two-story Victorian structure known as the Gamecock Cottage.

It was built about 1864 by William Shipman as part of his family estate on Cedar Street in Stony Book. He used the building to raise exotic birds. Shipman later moved the building to West Meadow Beach, where he used it to store rowing sculls.

Jenny Melville, mother of philanthropist Ward Melville, acquired Gamecock for preservation in the late 1930s. It served as a rental cottage under the auspices of the Three Village Inn until 1947, when it was sold to Brookhaven Town. It was then used as a residence until 1984, when it came under the stewardship of the Stony Brook Community Fund, now the Ward Melville Heritage Organization.

Over the years, other cottages were built on West Meadow Beach, mostly in the 1950s. Those cottages are to be razed after 2004 to make way for a town park. But the Gamecock Cottage is to remain.