Huntington Bay, NEW YORK - Casino at Beaux Arts

Description: Huntington Bay, NEW YORK - Casino at Beaux Arts - 1909: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Huntington was as popular a place for a summer vacation as the Hamptons are today. Starting in the 1870s, summer visitors could avail themselves of a waterfront inn established by the famous and colorful boxer and Brooklyn saloonkeeper William Clark on the shores overlooking Huntington Bay. In 1883, Clark advertised the hotel for sale. There were no takers. Two years later, Robert Cornell Townsend, a descendent of a wealthy old family from Flushing, took up summer residence at Clark’s hotel. Townsend died on May 20, 1888, and Townsend's East Neck property was sold to Nelson May. May did not immediately enlarge the hotel. But he did add another attraction: sailboat races in front of his hotel, which was renamed Locust Lodge. At the end of its third season under May’s ownership, the hotel was destroyed by fire. May built a new hotel that was much larger than the original. The new Locust Lodge was a 12,000 square foot, three story building with a 10-foot-wide porch on three sides. in 1906 when Locust Lodge was sold to three French brothers who ran a popular restaurant in Manhattan. Andre, Jacques and Louis Butaney had earlier purchased the Sammis farm on West Neck (now Lloyd Harbor) but disposed of that a year later when the Locust Lodge property became available. They wished to create a Long Island compliment to their successful midtown restaurant, Café Des Beaux Arts, located in the Beaux Arts Studio building at Sixth Avenue and 40th Street. The brothers planned to expand the Locust Lodge Hotel—renamed the Chateau des Beaux Arts—and hired the prestigious architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich to design a waterfront casino in the beaux-arts style that would accommodate diners at the water’s edge with broad terraces and a rooftop garden. The two-story casino measured 140’ by 60’ with towers at either end. It was connected to the hotel by tunnels and between the buildings was a landscaped garden. A separate bakery building, with a footprint almost as large as that of the casino, was built into the hillside along the west side of Bay Road. Although called a bakery, this may have been where most of the cooking for the casino’s large dining room was done. The bakery was connected to the casino with a tunnel reportedly big enough to drive a pick-up truck through (these tunnels were reportedly used by rumrunners during Prohibition). A long pier extended into the bay to accommodate yachts of any size. And, of course, garages were provided to welcome hundreds of automobilists. This Divided Back Era postcard, mailed in 1909, is in good condition. Gildersleeve Studio.

Price: 20 USD

Location: Brooklyn, New York

End Time: 2024-12-19T04:46:49.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD