North Hills

Between a Rock and This Place, Much History

Beginnings: There really is a Shelter Rock, an 1,800-ton boulder, largest known on Long Island, deposited by a mighty glacier more than 11,000 years ago near what is now Shelter Rock Road in the village of North Hills. The Matinecocks, who had a village on the site, used its 30-foot overhang for shelter and weaved many legends around it, as did the European colonists who arrived in the 1600s. The stories range from runaway lovers riddled with arrows before they could reach the shelter to buried treasure (never found). The giant boulder is on the private estate of the late John Hay Whitney, publisher and ambassador to England. It's not visible from the road.

Turning Points: The English settlers built a fence in 1658 along what is now Northern Boulevard. The north side was cow pasture; the south, including the present-day North Hills area, became a farming community. One of the largest farms in 1848 belonged to Isaac Underhill Willets, namesake of I.U. Willets Road (which bisected his property, to his displeasure). The farm is now a golf club. By the early 1900s about a dozen families owned huge estates, including railroad magnate Nicholas F. Brady, who built Inisfada, the fourth-largest residence in the country, now the St. Ignatius Retreat House. To protect their way of life, landowners organized a village in 1929 with two-acre zoning. Decades later, a 10-year battle raged over a zoning ordinance, passed in 1970, which, among other provisions, allowed for multifamily housing at 10 units to an acre, cluster housing and commercial development. A new building code in 1980 resulted in relative quiet.

Fame and Fortune: New York Yankees co-owner Daniel Reid Topping, CBS executive William S. Paley, industrialist Joseph Peter Grace and financier-publisher John Hay Whitney were among the rich and powerful who lived in North Hills.

Where to Find More: ``Manhasset, the First 300 Years,'' in the Manhasset Library.