The "Bedell House" in Old Bethpage

The following article first appeared in the Summer 2011 edition of the WH Community Support Association newsletter. A view of the "Bedell House" c. 1918 when it still sat along Hempstead Turnpike. Photo first appeared in Garden and Home Builder magazine in 1926.
Those who are attuned to local history are familiar with the fact that West Hempstead’s oldest and most valued relic can be found at Old Bethpage Village Restoration. The Bedell House was a modest wood frame house built in the 18th Century in colonial style, and was originally located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike just west of Mayfair Ave. By 1918, it had fallen into disrepair and was rescued by new owners, Carl L. and Lena Otto, who moved the house north toward the Garden City border. Carl L. Otto (pictured at left), a master architect who designed many prominent buildings and bridges in the Northeast, put his knowledge and expertise to work by having the house transported north toward the Garden City border and restored to its former glory. (Long time residents referred to the property surrounding house as Otto’s Woods).

The Roosevelt Savings Bank building on Gates Ave in Brooklyn (below left) and the Washington Street Bridge in Providence, RI (below, right, photo courtesy of Lisa J. Miller) are two examples of Otto's works.














In 1982, Carl's widow Lena, who was 100 years-old by then, donated the home to the Nassau County Parks Dept. who then transported the structure to Old Bethpage where, for the past 30 years, it has awaited a restoration that never happened.

But who owned the house before the Otto’s and how far back does it date to? When it was acquired by Old Bethpage, not much was known about its past and so an effort was made to puzzle together some historical information about the house. It was discovered that homestead dated to the last decade of the 18th century and was traced back to a man named Hiram K. Bedell who expanded the structure in 1835. The Bedell family was prominent throughout Long Island and Hiram’s father, Abraham, was postmaster for Hempstead Village. Beyond this, not much information was available about this home, so I decided to do see if could uncover any other clues about its history. What I discovered startled me.

A little while ago, I came into contact with a descendant of Hiram Bedell who was born and raised in West Hempstead. His grandfather, Alfred McCoun, was born in the Bedell House. (For those who wish to keep score, Hiram and Hannah Bedell had a son, Henry, who had a daughter Mary. Mary Bedell married Willett McCoun who had Alfred. Hiram Bedell died in 1870. His wife, Hannah, died at the age of 98 in 1894 and left 165 living descendants at the time of her death). He was kind enough to share with me a photo of the home of his grandfather from the 19th Century. I instantly noticed some obvious structural differences between the home in the photo and the one at Old Bethpage. This led me to discover that the house, in fact, is not the Bedell House at all, but another home that sat a couple blocks further west on the Turnpike. More importantly, the house may well be much older that previously thought, perhaps built as far back as the early 1700s! In 1926, Carl L. Otto penned an article in the Garden & Home Builder journal, detailing his transportation and renovation of the home. At the time of his purchase, Otto carefully studied some features of the home, particularly the handwrought strap-hinges, h-hinges and hand-made nails used in its construction and, in his expert opinion, concluded that it was at least 175 years-old. If true, that would date the Bedell House to around 1743, almost 50 years older than previously estimated, and would rival the Schenk farmhouse from Manhassett as the oldest house at Old Bethpage. (Some sources at the county have 1730 as the date it was built while another source claims 1765).

But who owned the house before Otto, if it wasn’t the Bedells? A notice in the April 4, 1918 edition of the Hempstead Sentinel at the time the home was originally moved gives us a clue. It was the family of John T. Hanna, a Brooklynite who worked on Wall Street as a stock broker. Hanna purchased the home in the 1870s as a summer retreat in the country for his wife and five children. At the time of his purchase, the property ran all the way back to the Garden City border and included both sides of what today is Mayfair Ave. In 1913, John Hanna died and soon thereafter the house fell into disuse before the Ottos rescued it in 1918. Who the owners of the house were before the Hanna’s still remains to be discovered. Owing to the fact that the house has been uprooted twice, and in the second move, the three chimneys supporting the structure were removed, the building is now beyond repair. It's actually amazing that the house has survived until now. The sturdy pine timbers used by the original owners (the Hannas used to refer to their retreat as "Pine Tree Cottage") have proved remarkably resilient. It has been deemed too deteriorated to warrant restoration and the decision was made to tear it down and build a replica. While the County is still busy securing funding for this project, head down to Old Bethpage and get one last look at a home that has been part of our local landscape for over 350 years.

Above is a view of the home c. 1926, after the Otto's moved it to the WH-Garden City border and restored it.

The "Bedell House" as it appears today at Old Bethpage.

Mayfair Avenue and St. Giles the Cripple

Previously we noted that WH attorney Francis B. Taylor had purchased a piece of property from John T. Hanna along Hempstead Turnpike in 1889. The following year, Hanna and Taylor petitioned the Town Highway Dept. to open up a road that bordered their property, that would run north-south between Hempstead Turnpike and First Avenue in Garden City. This road would become known as Mayfair Avenue. At that time, the only approach to Garden City from West Hempstead was Rockaway Ave (Cherry Valley Ave came in from the southwest). The Garden City Company vehemently opposed the opening of this road, ostensibly for two reasons: 1) It would detract from the exclusivity of the Village to have another road lead into town. 2) Hanna & Taylor's motives were to subdivide the northern sections of their property for new residences. The Garden City Co did not want to have a competing residential development so close to their village.

As it turned out, the Highway Dept. sided with Hanna & Taylor and Mayfair Avenue was built.

In 1891, shortly after the Mayfair petition was approved, an Episcopalian nun named Sister Sarah founded a hospital for children in Brooklyn called St. Giles the Cripple. The hospital was unique in that it not only provided medical services to children, but also social and educational services as well. The hospital filled a real need and quickly got off the ground and was now left with one problem. During the summer when people fled Brooklyn en masse for the country or for the beach, the St. Giles children had to endure stifling conditions of their stuffy quarters and tar-baked play yards. As a result, the children circulated and signed a petition that was presented to the trustees, asking for a summer home in the country where they could escape the city heat. The trustees quickly raised the requisite funds to purchase a home and began looking for a suitable location. The old Queens County Courthouse in Garden City Park was briefly considered, but having been built in 1786 and not used since 1872, the building was beyond repair. Ironically, the courthouse burned down soon after St. Giles rejected the site for their summer home.

In January 1903, a four acre site was chosen in West Hempstead at the north end of Mayfair Ave. and the Taylor estate, bordering Garden City. An airy country house already existed on the property and the Brooklyn Eagle declared that "a prettier spot for a summer home could not have been selected". Transfer of title took place on May 1 of that year and the building was dedicated on Saturday, May 30 with a tall, 18 ft. 'wayside cross' erected on the front lawn (the scene pictured below taken from the Brooklyn Eagle).

The hospital brought in cows and chickens and planted a garden, affording the young residents an enriched country experience during their stay at the Long Island facility. The campus eventually added a separate boys' dormitory, a schoolhouse and a surgical pavilion (seen below).

Eventually, St. Giles' 'summer annex' was utilized year round. During the 20s through the 50s, St. Giles played a major role in treating children suffering from polio. During that time, they claim to have ran the second largest outpatient clinic among all of the children’s orthopaedic hospitals in America.

By 1960, a polio vaccine had been discovered leading to a dramatic drop in the number of cases involving polio. By 1973, St. Giles sold off the West Hempstead property and soon after, in 1978, the Brooklyn Hospital closed for good. The organization still continues, however, as a charitable foundation with an endowment of over $26 million.

As for the West Hempstead property, the land was subdivided and developed as a quaint little cul-de-sac called Berryhill Court. Despite the hospital's relatively recent demise, there no longer seems to be any remnant of its existence. (The 'now' photo below taken from Google Maps approximate to the location of the St Giles , albeit further back from the street).

Francis B. Taylor and the Mayfair Section

In the previous post, we mentioned the name of West Hempsteader Francis B. Taylor, who was hired as an attorney by the People's Protective Association of Nassau County to try an stop the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup from taking place. Taylor actually had a personal interest in stopping the race - his home was located right on the course. He lived on Hempstead Turnpike at the corner of Mayfair Ave. Here is some more information about him, from what I've been able to gather.

Francis Bergh Taylor was born in 1864 in NJ and soon after moved to NY. He was a great-grandson a Revolutionary War soldier from South Carolina named Joseph Moringault and was an active member of the Sons of the Revolution. In 1889, he purchased a tract of land on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike from John T. Hanna, a stock broker who owned a large country estate where the Mayfair section is now located. In the 1906 Belcher-Hyde map below, you will notice J T Hanna's estate just west of Mayfair Ave and Francis Taylor's property just to the east of Mayfair.

In 1890, he received his law degree from NYU Law School (in the third graduating class of the school) and opened up a practice in Hempstead, becoming a prominent local attorney. Possibly owing to his southern roots, Taylor was a staunch democrat in politics, even as a young 20 year old when he worked for the Grover Cleveland 1884 election campaign and helped get the first democratic president in 28 years to the White House. In 1893 he was elected as Justice of the Peace for the Village of Hempstead and in 1897 served as the only democratic member of the Town board. When he left the board in 1898, the Republican who took his seat ensured that the TOH would be governed by one party rule for some time thereafter. Alas, Taylor's party affiliation ensured that his political career never got very far, since Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead had always been republican strongholds. He ran and lost for County Comptroller in 1919, and ran unsuccessfully for State Assembly in 1922 and 1923. In the 1922 defeat which he lost by only 35 votes, he filed a lawsuit claiming ballot irregularities and successfully petitioned a judge for a recount and re-examination of the voting machines. (He evidently lost anyway).

One of the more interesting cases which F B Taylor litigated was one brought in 1905 by a taxpayer of School District 17, involving (among other things) the issue of separation of church and state. Before SD17's John Street School was built in the 1930s, the district schoolhouse was located at the south corner of Nassau Blvd. and Dogwood Ave. The school board had voted to expend $200 in erecting a horse shed on school grounds, the alleged purpose of which was to accommodate people who would attend a religious school that leased the building on Sundays. Taylor successfully brought suit on behalf of his client to prevent the board from what was ruled inappropriate public expenditure.

Francis B Taylor died in 1940 in West Hempstead and his body was taken to South Carolina to be buried together with his ancestors.