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Our Houses

From Gold Coast mansions to the humble bay shack ... the places we've called home

The dining room of the 1654 Riker farmhouse in Jackson Heights, with its original fireplace flanked by traditional cupboards, served as a tavern in colonial times. (Newsday Photo / Bruce Gilbert)

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The largest house in New York is on Long Island. So, arguably, is the smallest. But between the over-the-top glamor of Otto Kahn's 72-room Oheka estate and the modest simplicity of the one-room Hempstead Town bay shacks lie nearly 750,000 single-family structures -- homes that embody the sweep of Long Island history and a surprising range of architectural styles.

It is tempting to stereotype Long Island as cookie-cutter Modern, the tract development special with four bedrooms, two trees and a 60-by-100 lot that has multiplied like crazy since the first Levitt rental went on the market in 1947. Like any stereotype, though, that one masks reality. From the toniest Gold Coast mansion to the edgiest Hamptons style, Long Island has long attracted the mightiest architects and builders -- Stanford White, John Russell Pope, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Gwathmey, Robert A.M. Stern, Norman Jaffee and Abraham Levitt & Sons, among them.

``Long Island has always been the launching pad of the American Dream,'' says Robert B. MacKay, director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. ``We are known for the planned communities that culiminated in Levittown. Suburban development happened here first. The Hamptons phenomenon happened here. And we've been the hotbed of innovation in domestic design in the postwar period.''

This section will lead you on a different sort of house tour -- a glimpse into 350 years of the Long Island home, from the earliest kitchens and the grandest Gatsby mansions to the quirkiest tract houses and the most soothing waterfront escapes. What they share is a role in the evolution of Long Island style.