Freddie Voelpel's

The photo above depicts Freddie Voelpel's restaurant as it stood at 372 Hempstead Avenue between the years 1950-1957.  Freddie Voelpel was a bowling legend who at one time captured the Long Island bowling championship in 1944. The following year, Voelpel was on track to win a second championship before he suffered a serious mishap.  At his day job in the NY Daily News print room, he lost the tips of a couple fingers on his bowling hand when it got caught in a print roller.  He managed to continue to bowl competitively after that, but he never returned to the top of his game.

Freddie Voelpel was part of a pretty substantial bowling culture that existed on Long Island back in the '40s and '50s, wherein names like George Young, Andy Varipapa, Joe Falcaro and Tony Sparando would compete in tournaments and bowling halls like Mid Isle Lanes (formerly Heinemen's) on Peninsula Ave in Hempstead (now the site of a public storage facility) and Falcaro's own hall in Lawrence (Falcaro's closed down only about ten years ago).

In 1944 Voelpel took his winnings and bought a stake in a bowling venue called Baldwin Modern Lanes, but then he made a business decision that would later come back to haunt him, one that he would later regret.  Thinking that there was no commercial future in bowling, in February 1950 he sold his stake in Baldwin Modern and bought the restaurant you see pictured above. (He named it after himself because, well, he couldn't find a better name for it). This was right around the time when the deployment of automatic pin-setting machines was about to revolutionize the sport by obviating the need to rely on "pin-boys" to reset the pins. (Voelpel never gave these newfangled machines a chance but was the first to admit his mistake years later in an interview). As a result, commercial bowling would enjoy a huge upswing in the coming decades.

On the other side of the coin, around the same time that he got bought his restaurant, those local, family-run eating establishments such as Voelpel's were getting crowded out and losing business to cheaper fast-food joints that were popping up all over Long Island.

Freddie Voelpel was simply a victim of bad timing.  Aside from that, the combination of his day job and managing the restaurant left him averaging around four hours of sleep a night with no time for any leisure activity. In 1957, he sold the tavern and moved to the South Shore where he bought a boat and lived his life in semi-retirement.

Empire State Diner

The photo above c. 1949 looks south across Hempstead Turnpike and shows the Empire State Diner, a West Hempstead landmark during the '40s '50s and '60s. The diner was owned and operated by a Cathedral Gardens resident named Charles Efthinion, along with his brother Phillip who lived in nearby Hempstead Gardens.  

The Efthinion Bros. ran the restaurant until 1963, whereafter they relocated down the road to the southwest corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Nassau Blvd (current location of a Sleepy's), and opened a restaurant called "The Country Gentleman".  That restaurant was built on a site that for years, dating back to the 19th century, was occupied by William Stringham's general store and was once the central location of the long-forgotten Hamlet of Munson. Below is a "now" shot of the old Empire State Diner location. 

In 1964, the diner was demolished and in November of that year, ground was broken to build the first of many IHOPs on Long Island.  That restaurant continues to operate at the same location, nearly 50 years later, one of the few original businesses from that era.  (Below is an ad that appeared in the May 13, 1965 edition of Newsday).

The vacant building in the "now" shot was built in 1966 and represented S Klein's first foray into the automotive and tire business.  The building boasted 12 bays and the operators originally envisioned a capacity of servicing up to 280 cars per day.  What they did not envision was that S Klein wouldn't last another 10 years after that.

 The S Klein Tire & Auto Center became Korvette's Tire & Auto Center which then became Tires Incorporated.  This building may well be the record-setter for the duration of a vacant commercial building in West Hempstead.  (No, the temporary occupancy as the campaign headquarters of former Town Supervisor Greg Peterson's failed election bid for County Executive in 2005 does not count for filling the vacancy).

Maison Pepi - Gum Ying

Readers don't have to jog back their memories too far to remember when the building pictured above, a colonial home-turned restaurant, stood at the northeast corner of Hempstead and Eagle Avenues. It was only around ten years ago when it was torn down.   The house stood at that corner since at least the beginning of the 20th Century and at one time during the 1920s, was home to a famous interior designer named Edith Hebron.  

The image above was captured on a sunny day, some time in the 1960s, when the restaurant was known as Maison Pepi. In 1946,  Valley Stream resident and veteran restaurateur Charles Pepi purchased the home and converted it into a world-class eating establishment where patrons would come far and wide to enjoy its continental-American cuisine.  Maison Pepi was a real family-run establishment.  Charles Sr. served as Maitre d' while his wife and daughter waited for the tables, and his son, Charles Jr. tended the bar.  Maison Pepi would become a popular spot for wedding receptions, local civic and social group meetings, and a favorite jaunt for Long Island politicians. Charles Sr. died in 1962 and his son continued the operation until 1976.

That year the restaurant was sold and reopened under a new concern as Gum Ying, which served Chinese food and developed into a favorite eatery among locals. 

A highlight in the history of Gum Ying came on March 9, 1982, when it was paid a visit by New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who arranged a lunch meeting there with Nassau County Executive Francis Purcell.  The meeting was little more that a photo-op for Koch but it created alot of local buzz at the time.  Koch had had his sights on the NY State Governorship, but just prior to this meeting, he turned off upstate and Long Island voters when he described the suburban lifestyle as "sterile" in an interview for Playboy Magazine.  (He ended up losing the democratic primary to Mario Cuomo).  The lunch intended to make up for that gaffe and attempted to show how well Koch, an outspoken Democrat politician, could get along with his Republican counterparts like Purcell.  For the record, Koch ordered Chinese noodles and barbecue shrimp and remarked about how good the food was at Gum Ying (Purcell had already been a regular customer at the restaurant).

Alas, in 2002, Gum Ying closed its doors for good and the corner landmark that overlooked Hall's Pond for 100+ years was knocked down, to make way for the site's current occupant, below.

History of the Hempstead Golf & Country Club Part II

In our previous post we focused on the early history of the Hempstead Golf & Country Club property, and the former owners of the estate, CC Parsons and his son Theophilus.  The following paragraphs will trace back the history of the golf club.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the sport of golf was quickly becoming a favorite pastime and leisure activity for the well-heeled set.  On Long Island in particular, an explosion of clubs began to dot the landscape over the next decades to the point where today, it is home to more than 160 public and private corses.   In 1899 a group of Hempstead locals were given permission by the Garden City Company to develop a nine-hole course as the Midland Golf Club, on a vacant plot of land just south of 4th Street between Cathedral and Hilton Avenues. That course was short-lived, however, because in 1907 Garden City decided to reclaim the property for real-estate development.  That same year, another public course was being laid out just to the west named the Salisbury links, and Midland members were invited to join.  However, rather than being absorbed by Salisbury, Midland retained their separate identity and remained listed in the US Golfers Association directory as the only chartered club in America without a course.

When Salisbury became a private club and changed its name to Cherry Valley in 1916, the old Midland members found themselves in a quandary: either they would soon need to find their own course or their club would disband and disappear. 

As mentioned in my last article, in late 1919 former Hempstead Village Mayor and WWI veteran Theophilus Parsons moved his family down to DC to pursue his career as a patent lawyer, and looked to sell his 122-acre estate in the southwest corner of the village.  By April 3, 1920, it was reported that a small part the estate was sold to Mineola developer Richard T. Childs and the Mineola Homes Co., upon which 3 homes were built, and it was assumed that the remainder of the estate would be developed for homes.  Fortunately, perhaps because of the efforts of some fast moving citizens, that plan never materialized.

The creation of the Hempstead Golf and Country Club can be traced back to a meeting held on Saturday, June 25, held at the Hempstead Bank Building (at the corner of Fulton & Main Sts.)  Earlier that week, a group of men from the old Midland club organized to explore the suitability of acquiring and redeveloping the estate into a golf course. They solicited the advice of golf champion and designer of the Salisbury course, Walter J. Travis, who affirmed that the soil and terrain would make for a championship-caliber course.  A committee was formed under the leadership of Jesse Richards, a manager at the NY & Queens Electric Light & Power Co. and WH Eaton, a junior partner at Doubleday, Page & Co., and shortly thereafter, a lease agreement was made with the property owners that included an option to buy the site outright. 

By August, work was started on the course, under the supervision of master architect Peter Lees.  When Lees got to work, he found a property two-thirds of which was highly cultivated farmland, which held down construction costs.  The remaining third was wooded. The sod was a sandy loam about eighteen inches deep, similar to those of the Garden City courses, which figured favorably for the drainage of the greens and fairways, after heavy rains.  Lees laid out a course 6,334 yards long in total, and designed the unique feature where the first, ninth, tenth and eighteenth holes would be in full view of the veranda of the clubhouse.  (The course has since been redesigned). 

Membership fees were modest in comparison to other area clubs - the cost was set at a $100 initiation fee and a $100 annual membership, and soon the predetermined 350 member quota was quickly filled.

The old Parsons Homestead (circa 1704 - see previous article) was renovated into a stately clubhouse in time for a grand opening on Memorial day, 1921, while work continued on the course. By late Summer, nine holes were made ready and on a rainy Saturday, on Sept. 17, 1921 the golf course formally opened as Jesse Richards drove first ball.  By afternoon the clouds let up and the late Summer sun bathed the course in sunshine. 

In May 1922, the club exercised their option to purchase the property outright for $134,000, and the following year all 18 holes were ready for play.  A couple years later, an additional 18 acres was added to the property and the course underwent a complete redesign by A W Tillinghast and readied for the 1927 season.

Over the years, the clubhouse and grounds have undergone major renovation and changes. In 1934, a major fire destroyed a portion of the house, but the club regrouped and rebuilt that section.

Over 90 years later and still going strong, the Hempstead Golf and Country Club continues to provide leisure to its members and beautiful scenery to its community.

History of the Hempstead Golf & Country Club Part I - the Parsons Estate

The post below originally appeared, with minor modifications, in the Winter 2012 edition of the West Hempstead Community Support Association News & Views newsletter.

The following is the first of a two-part post on the history of the Hempstead Golf and Country Club property, much of which lies adjacent to West Hempstead. The present article will focus on the Parsons family, the last owners of the house before it was expanded and remodeled into the clubhouse of the HGCC. Among the members of this family who lived in this home included two war heroes, two authors - one of whom was a founder of the Hempstead library, the other a Pulitzer Prize winner, an inventor and entrepreneur who became a world-famous household name, a secretary of the Hempstead Board of Education, and the youngest president of the Village of Hempstead ever to serve in that office.

We begin with Charles Chauncy Parsons, who purchased the 120+ acre property on the south side of Front Street some time in the 1870s. C C Parsons was born in Taunton, MA in 1840 to an illustrious Massachusetts family. His father, Theophilus Parsons, was dean of Harvard Law School. His grandfather, also named Theophilus Parsons, served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, was a good friend of John Adams, and was one of the drafters of the Mass. State Constitution in 1780. In 1860 Charles graduated from Harvard and two years later, received a law degree from Harvard Law School. During his college years, Charles displayed an aptitude for ingenuity and inventiveness, particularly in the area of chemistry. By the time he graduated in mid-1862, the Civil War was well underway. So on August 22, 1862, he enlisted in the Army and received a commission of Second Lieutenant in the 1st Mass. Cavalry and saw action in the famous battles at Antietam and Wilderness, among others. He was a classmate and friend of Colonel Robert Shaw, the famous leader of the all-black 54th Mass. Regiment, and subject of the1989 film Glory. By the time he was mustered out on May 30, 1865, he had been promoted to the rank of Major and honorably discharged.

After the war he settled down and plied his skills in chemistry, perfecting various formulas for insecticides and household cleaning solutions. In 1867, he moved to NY and started a business manufacturing chemicals. Sometime shortly after his marriage to Julia Worth Michael of Virginia in 1876, he moved out to Hempstead where he purchased an old stately house and farm in the southwest corner of town that would later become home to the Hempstead Golf & Country Club.

Around the same time he patented a formula that refined ammonia to be used as a domestic cleaning agent and thereafter “C C Parsons Household Ammonia” became a household name. His company, Columbia Chemical Works, headquartered in Brooklyn, distributed this and other products throughout the world for well into the 20th century.

Parsons was heavily involved in the civic affairs of Hempstead Village. For many years he served as secretary of the Hempstead Board of Education and belonged to various civic and social groups.

Julia Parsons founded the Hempstead Subscription Library in 1889, forerunner of the Hempstead Library, and served as its president for more than ten years until her untimely death in October 1900. She served as the local regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution and as president of a literary society called the Hempstead Woman’s Club. She was also an accomplished author who published titles under the pseudonym Julian Warth. At her probate hearing, it was revealed that she bequeathed $20,000 to build a new library on the grounds of her estate. However, for unknown reasons, possibly due to the fact that the location was not central enough, this plan never came to fruition.

A couple months later, in January 1901, C. C. Parsons also died unexpectedly and was mourned by a great many citizens of Hempstead.

The Parsons has two sons: Theophilus, born in 1877 and Geoffrey, born in 1879. Geoffrey inherited his mother’s literary skills, and after graduating from Columbia, he became an author and newspaper reporter for the NY Herald-Tribune, eventually becoming that paper’s chief editorial writer. In 1942, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Roosevelt’s foreign policy in 1941.

After the death of his father, Theophilus received a law degree from Columbia and continued to live at the Hempstead Estate. In 1902, Theophilus organized a literary society called the Hempstead Outlook Club, and the inaugural meeting on April 12 was held at the Parsons home. One of the topics discussed at that meeting was a survey of the oldest houses in Hempstead, and it was revealed that a part of the Parsons

home dated to 1704! If that estimate is correct, that would rank the house among the oldest surviving structures in the entire County.

In June of that year, Theophilus married Florence Whitin of Massachusetts, who picked up where her late mother-in-law left off as secretary of the Hempstead Library and president of the Hempstead Woman’s Club. By the middle of the decade, Theophilus was elected the youngest-serving President of Hempstead Village. The job of the Village president back then was a bit different than today’s mayoral responsibilities. For one thing, the population of the village then hovered just over 3,500 persons, whereas today it stands at almost 54,000.

Instead of dealing with such issues as arranging the multi-billion dollar gentrification projects of today, the president had other important concerns to deal with, such as stray dogs roaming the village, giving out tickets to people who rode bicycles on the sidewalks and cars exceeding the 20 MPH speed limit. Theophilus got a lot of negative press in those days for being overly aggressive in enforcing the Village’s codes.

When WWI rolled around, Theophilus enlisted in the Army and fought in France attaining the rank of Captain in the 10th Machine Gun Company

After the war he moved his family to Washington, DC and set up a law practice as a patent lawyer. In 1920, the recently vacated Parsons Estate created a golden opportunity for both real estate developers and golf enthusiasts who all vied to acquire the property in that rapidly expanding section of Hempstead. In a future post, we shall explore the early history of the eventual occupant of that property, the Hempstead Golf & Country Club.

Early view of the Hempstead Golf & Country Club—formerly the Parsons Homestead. (Courtesy of the HPL digital collection).

Dogwood Knolls - A Former Local Farm with a Familiar Story

Pick a random home under 60 years-old in the Malverne/ West Hempstead area and chances are that it sits on what was once a typical piece of Central Nassau County farmland with a familiar ring to its history that at the same time offers its own unique story to tell. That history typically includes what started out at the turn of the 20th century as a 40 or 50 acre tract upon which its owner, more likely than not a German immigrant, grew produce that would be harvested and then transported every season by truck to markets in New York City. The owner likely lived in a quaint farmhouse with his immediate family, perhaps even some of his extended family, and enjoyed a quiet country life in a neighborhood where the pace of life moved slowly, where things remained relatively unchanged until just after WWII.

Then, after the war, a major transformation occurred in Nassau County. There was a serious shortage of houses in the New York metro area, where heavy demand was spurred on by returning GIs who were eager to settle down and start a family. As a result of this demand, most of these Long Island farmers took deals that were too good to pass up and sold to developers who platted and subdivided their former land into neatly arranged properties whereupon mass produced, pre-designed, cookie-cutter homes would soon be built. In a relatively short period, houses began sprouting up everywhere, leaving a dearth of existing open space that remains in the aging suburbs of Nassau County.

Such is the story of a 45-acre farm on the western side of Dogwood Ave. on the West Hempstead/ Franklin Square border and its owner, Peter Wenk. Wenk voyaged across the Atlantic from Germany in 1892 as a young, enterprising 24 year-old bachelor full of hopes and ambitions that were characteristic of so many immigrants of that time. Shortly after arriving, he quickly found employment with Herman Breyer, a well-known florist from Elmhurst. Two years later, he married and started a family and all the while carefully squirreled away his savings until he was able to branch out and establish his own business. In 1898, he moved to Ozone Park and set up a series of greenhouses on a newly purchased plot of land where he cultivated marketable house plants and flowers. His flower shop became so prosperous that in just twenty years time, Peter Wenk & Sons Florists became the largest and most successful of its kind in all of Queens, according to one report.

The rapid expansion of his business necessitated the acquisition of more farmland. He found what he was looking for in what was then the rural community of Munson, L.I., where in 1916 he purchased a fertile plot from John Lewis Childs, founder of Floral Park and owner of the world-famous JL Childs Seed Co. Thereupon, he moved out to Long Island with his wife and four children, where the family planted roots - literally and figuratively - in the community and continued to farm there until 1950. In that year, developer David Coleman, president of Rutgers Homes, Inc., purchased the property to erect 175 bungalow-type homes similar to the one in the  photo above, in a new $2.5 million colony to be called Dogwood Knolls. This photo appeared in the Sunday, November 19, 1950 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle together with a quarter-page advertisement heralding the first showing of this new development.

This three-bedroom ranch, located at the corner of Dogwood Ave. and Cornell Rd., also served as the development's model home and typified a popular architectural style of that era, featuring amenities that were considered cutting-edge at the time - scientific kitchens, dishwashers, washing machines, and automatic oil burners. In 1950, the Dogwood Avenue corridor was among the most rapidly expanding sections in Nassau County and Dogwood Knolls was but a small part of an overall development of more than 1,200 nearby homes that year, complete with a new, large 25-unit shopping center just down the road.

An added attraction touted by the Dogwood Knolls advertisments was that their homes were not subject to the imposition of a clause called "Regulation X". What was Regulation X? In September 1950, Congress passed the Defense Production Act in response to the start of the Korean War. Among various war powers enumerated in this bill, federal government was granted authority to regulate the terms of home mortgages to ensure that there would be no shortage of building materials that might hamper the war effort and also to curb economic factors in the housing market that might spur inflation. As a result, the Federal Reserve Board set minimums for the percentage of a down payment and interest rates on a home loan, a part of the Defense Production Act entitled Regulation X, which had the effect of cooling down a housing market that was red hot in 1950. Dogwood Knolls gleefully announced that their mortgage commitments were obtained before the passage of the DPA and therefore were not subject to its restrictions. That meant that a lucky veteran who purchased a $12,990 home could pay 10% down or $1,299, and at the going 4% interest rate that was offered back then, would pay just $72/ month on a 20-year mortgage. (Think about that next time your monthly mortgage is due.).

Over the next couple decades, area home development reached a saturation point and interest rates charted a path to a steady climb, never again to dip to those kinds of 1950s levels, until only recently.
 
The story of the Wenk Farm/Dogwood Knolls is a familiar and recurring one for properties of our neighborhood, and one that has shaped the local landscape of Malverne and West Hempstead into what it is today.

Junard Homes Development on the Lindner Farm

The "then" shot above looks east on Colonade Rd. toward its curve northward toward Knollwood Dr., and shows a collection of freshly built houses in 1951 that were part of the 147-unit Junard Homes development.  The property was originally a 34-acre farm owned by Henry Lindner, older brother of Paul W. F. Lindner, that extended from Nassau Blvd. to the east to Dogwood Ave. to the west, with Hawthorne St. as the southern border of the farm. Henry was born in Germany in 1866 and at age 4, came to America with his family where they settled in Washington Square (West Hempstead). Henry continued in his father George's footsteps and engaged in farming. In 1947, Henry's wife Anna died and in 1951, like so many other local landowners, the old farmer accepted an offer that was probably too good to pass up and sold his farm to a home developer.

The developer, Brooklyn native Saul Z. Sokolov, president of the Junard Construction Corp., had a proven track record accross Long Island and eventually established himself as one of the more prolific home builders in the region. His first major home project was a pre-war development on Lakeview Ave in Rockville Centre called Knollwood. Saul was a director of the prestigious LI Home Builders Institute. The Sokolovs were also West Hempstead residents for a time before later moving to Kings Point on the North Shore. After WWII, he went on to build many developments in and around West Hempstead: Garden City South (Nassau Blvd & 8th St., in 1947), Mayfair Section of WH (Concord & Hamilton Aves, between Broadway and Mayfair, and later Groton Pl. in 1948), Franklin Square (Franklin Ave & Polk St, in 1948), Garden City South (Nassau Blvd & Princeton Rd., in 1949).

For the Junard Homes development in WH, Saul brought in his son Richard, a recent Syracuse University graduate with a degree in engineering, as a principle of the company. In fact, the name "Junard" comes from a fusion of the names of Saul's daughter and son, June and Richard. (Now the names of the street in that section start to make sense - Junard Blvd., Knollwood Dr., June Ct., Lindner Pl. The meaning behind the name Colonade is still a mystery to me.)

The homes were marketed as 4 1/2 to 7 room capes and ranches with a price range of $14,900 - $20,900. The first of these homes, the ones you see pictured above, were ready for occupancy by September 1, 1951 and the remainder were quickly sold.

Saul Sokolov Died in 1977 and Richard went on to serve in the Kings Point Village government for over 30 years, first as a member of the the planning board commission, then as deputy mayor. He stepped down this year at age 85, having served as a village trustee.