Owl Hill County Park in Fort Salonga will see its historic home refurbished, ready for the public

Half a million dollars recently awarded from New York State to a historic park and estate in Fort Salonga will help open more of the area to the public, officials said.

The improvements to Owl Hill County Park — which was once eyed for development — could help boost visits to the park and mansion, state officials said.

The $500,000 grant for Owl Hill County Park was recently awarded as part of more than $38 million in funding to 49 projects across New York through the state's County Infrastructure Grant Program.

The funding for the Edmund Wetmore Estate, known as Owl Hill and located on Sunken Meadow Road, will go toward improvements to the historic main house and garage, allowing them to be open to the public.

In 2024, Suffolk officials and the property owner were finalizing a deal to purchase the land. The county completed its acquisition of the 27.6-acre property earlier this year. It features a 2.5-story, 12-room mansion built in 1907 for Edmund Wetmore, a New York City attorney who specialized in patent law, and designed by architect Henry Killam Murphy.

The funding will ensure the buildings are structurally sound and allow for the restoration of the roofs, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul. These improvements will make the main house and garage safe for the county to open to the public for visitation, "directly supporting increased tourism," she said in a statement.

Corey Geske, a local historian, led an effort to get the property designated under both the New York State and National Register of Historic Places after she began researching it in 2017.

She said the home was also owned by the inventor Michel N. Yardney.

"It has a phenomenal background. It’s a place of invention, a think tank," Geske said. "Amazing people lived here as owners, and it was a creative place where great creativity has come in."

In 2024, the Smithtown planning board granted developer and property owner Owl Hill Estates and Preserve LLC approval to subdivide the property into 18 lots for single-family homes, Newsday reported. The development would have been among the largest residential subdivisions to be built in the Town of Smithtown in recent memory.

Residents pushed back against the proposal, citing the history of the property as one of the reasons to halt its development.