Rockville Centre Historical Society, The Phillips House Museum, 28 Hempstead Avenue, Rockville Centre, NY (2026)

03/19/2026

🎓 Calling all RVC high school seniors with a passion for history!

The Rockville Centre Historical Society is excited to offer a $500 scholarship to a graduating senior who loves exploring the past and plans to continue studying history in college (no declared major required!).

📍 Must be an RVC resident
📚 Demonstrated interest in history
🎓 Applied to a 2- or 4-year college

🗓 Deadline: April 1, 2026. See link to apply in bio!

03/06/2026

The home at 275 Lakeview Av began its life c.1835 as the farmhouse for a 40-acre property on what was then the northeastern outskirts of Rockville Centre. In 1860, after retiring from the sea, Captain Edwin Wallace purchased the property for $3,200. Like many early residents of the village, he was a Maine-born sea captain. A Civil War veteran and mariner for more than 30 years, he soon became one of the community’s early civic leaders and a strong advocate for incorporating the Village. Captain Wallace also proved to be a visionary when it came to land and development. Recognizing the growth potential of LI, he built Morris Av north of Lakeview through his property, making the surrounding land more attractive for future development. By the 1880s, after many years in the Lakeview Av farmhouse, Wallace built a larger home at 117 Maple Av. That house later made way for what is now the Village Green. His contributions to the community were significant: he donated land where RVC’s power plant stands on Maple and Morris, and he hosted the village’s first trustee meeting in his home shortly after incorporation in 1893. When Wallce died in 1907, the village honored him in a remarkable way—local stores closed at 1 p.m. so residents could participate in the funeral procession down Village Av. After his death, his grandson Edwin Wallace Jr. returned from Oregon to care for his grandmother. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, he became deeply involved in Village affairs. A World War I veteran, Wallace Jr. went on to serve as Village trustee and later Village President (mayor) at just age 29. In 1923, he began selling off the old Wallace farmland for residential development. At the time, the land was estimated to be worth $3 million—a remarkable return on his grandfather’s original $3,200 investment. Over the decades, the farmhouse was home to several village families, including A.H. Lennox (whose home had one of RVC’s earliest phone numbers, 139-W), WWII veteran Ellis Baker, the Brock and Rowland families, and Charles Alessi, a SSMS guidance counselor. Nearly two centuries later, the historic farmhouse still stands telling the story of a captain and RVC’s early growth

03/03/2026

Thanks to all for attending our first RVC Historical Spciety 2026 Speaker Series with LI author and historian Bill Bleyer. It was fascinating to learn more about Long Island’s role in the American Revolution as we approach our 250th anniversary. Thanks to Bill for his time and rich content. Can’t wait to read his new book, “George Washington’s Long Island Spy Ring!” Stay tuned for our next event!

02/20/2026

The story of 222 Sunrise Highway began around 1919 when this purpose-built printing plant rose to serve the South Side Observer, a local newspaper that stretched back to 1865 as RVC’s first paper, The Picket, began chronicling daily life on the South Shore.
In 1921, publisher James E. Stiles launched the Daily Review from this building, merging several historic local papers into one voice for Nassau County. By 1937, Stiles combined the Nassau Daily Review with the Nassau Daily Star, creating the Nassau Daily Review-Star. From the presses inside 222 Sunrise Highway came the news of wars, weddings, village politics, and school sports for more than 40,000 readers at its peak in the 1940s. For decades, the rumble of printing presses echoed across Sunrise Highway as thousands of papers left the building each day.
The newspaper was sold in 1949 and printing stopped in 1954, ending an 88-year lineage of local journalism that began with The Picket. But the building did not fall silent.
In the years that followed, the presses gave way to new forms of media and community life. For years after, the Pennysaver of South Nassau and Queens was housed on the first floor, while upstairs was the home of Long Island News and The Owl. The building continued to evolve with the village—at one point home to Leggz dance studio on the second floor and most recently becoming the lively restaurant we know today. For more than a century, 222 Sunrise Highway has adapted to the changing rhythms of Rockville Centre. Though the presses are gone, the building remains a quiet witness to the place where Nassau County’s daily story was once printed.

02/08/2026

Ever wonder how Hewitt got its name?

01/27/2026

The Davison Park development began in the 1890s on land owned by Clarence DeMott Davison (1859–1909), a prominent local landowner. Davison built a large family home that still stands at 26 Rutland Avenue. When he laid out the neighborhood’s street grid, he named the first north–south street Davison Avenue and the next two after his children, Marion and Lewis. (A younger child, Mildred Edith, was named after Clarence’s wife, Edith.)

Clarence Davison died unexpectedly at the age of 50 from a heart condition, leaving Edith to raise their three young children. When his son Lewis turned 21, he married Florence Alma de Costa, a local woman from a wealthy Oceanside family. The de Costa family were also major landowners and philanthropists, donating part of their estate for the construction of South Nassau Hospital and developing numerous theaters across Nassau County, including the iconic Strand Theatre in Rockville Centre.

Believed to be a wedding gift, Florence and Lewis Davison moved into their new home in 1920—on Davison family owned land just one block from Lewis’s childhood home and fittingly located on the street that bore his name. The couple had one daughter, Alma, born in 1924, and employed a live-in servant, Minnie. Lewis worked as a salesman for a to***co company.

In the 1960s, Lewis moved permanently to his summer home in Wading River. He passed away in 1982 and is buried at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale.

The current owners purchased the home in 2000 and have thoughtfully restored it inside and out, preserving a 106-year-old residence with deep and meaningful ties to the early history of Rockville Centre.

01/25/2026

Across the street from Captain Whittemore at the intersection of North Village and Maine Avenues, in what was called “the Grove” in RVC due to all the large chestnut trees, another Maine-born mariner, Captain John W. Gallison (1824–1897) built this Victorian residence in 1870. At the time, it was the northern terminus of Village Ave with just woods to the north. The property had a large daisy field in the rear, numerous crab apples and over 50 towering oak trees. In 1882, the home and land were purchased for $300 by the Corbett family and family members continued to live in the home until the mid 1940s.

Captain Tristram Thurlow Corbett (1846–1908), was born in Cutler, Maine, to Captain Daniel and Abigail Corbett. Tristram—like Whittemore and RVC’s other sea captains—began his seafaring life as a young teenager, following in his father’s footsteps.

At just 26 years old, he assumed command of the Lena Thurlow after his father died from injuries sustained in a hurricane-related sailing accident near the Bahamas. Corbett’s first wife, Jeannette, often traveled with him and made one poignant request: if she were ever to die at sea, she wished to be buried back home in Maine. Tragically, while sailing with Tristram near Cuba, she succumbed to a tropical illness at the age of 26. Lacking a coffin, the crew transported her body in a cask of rum, and she was laid to rest in Old Cutler Cemetery in Maine.

In 1876, Corbett married Clara Lavinia Willeby. Together they had three children—Willeby, Olive, and Eugenie—and the entire family continued the seafaring life. Remarkably, Eugenie was born aboard one of her father’s vessels, the Olive Thurlow. The three children continued to live their adult lives in RVC with Olive remaining in the N. Village Ave house until it was sold to Elizabeth Murphy and demolished in 1947. She then moved to 79 Riverside Dr. and Williby to 94 Grand Ave.

After the house and its barn were demolished in March 1945, the Mayfair Co-op building was constructed in 1950 and still occupies the site.

01/21/2026

2/4 Rutland Ave. (formerly Rutland Place) was built in 1902 on land owned by Clarence Davison, a member of one of Rockville Centre’s early families and among the town’s largest landowners on the south side.

The neighborhood’s street grid was laid out in the 1890s, after which individual building plots were sold. Around the turn of the century, Davison constructed a large family home at 26 Rutland Avenue, along with several other residences on Marion, Rutland, and Davison Avenues as part of his new development.

The original owners of 2 Rutland Avenue were Dana and Lucinda Clough. Dana, born in 1846, was raised in New Hampshire. He met and married Lucinda Eilert in Philadelphia in 1889. In 1902, the Cloughs purchased this newly built home and moved in with their three children—Arthur, Alice, and Clarence.

Dana passed away in April 1926, followed by Lucinda just a few months later. Both are buried at Rockville Cemetery in Lynbrook. By 1930, the house had been converted into a two-family residence, with their daughter Alice Clough Weeks living in the main portion of the home. The property remains a two-family residence today and has changed very little since this early photograph of the street.

01/18/2026

The Riverside Park subdivision was established in the 1880s, with most of its homes constructed between 1900 and 1930. The residence at 79 South Village Avenue was built circa 1913 on land subdivided from a larger property owned by R. A. Smith, located at the corner of North Centre Avenue and South Village Avenues.

The original owner was Isabelle Southard, who had previously owned a substantial tract of land along Long Beach Road near what is now Southard Avenue. Following her husband Edgar’s death in 1910, Isabelle sold the family home and moved into the newly constructed residence at 79 South Village Avenue in 1913.

Upon Isabelle’s death in 1927, the home was sold to George and Anna Reeve. Anna was a member of the Seaman family, among Long Island’s earliest settlers. The Reeves had one child, Elizabeth, born in 1899, who attended South Side High School and later became a schoolteacher. Elizabeth eventually married her next-door neighbor, Lawrence Patterson, who was seven years her senior and owned an ornate Victorian home at 83 South Village Avenue, distinguished by its turret and wraparound porch.

After Lawrence Patterson’s death in 1967, Elizabeth sold that property; the Victorian home was subsequently demolished and replaced with three new residences. Elizabeth then returned to her childhood home at 79 South Village Avenue, where she lived until her death in 1987 at the age of 88. The current owners purchased the house at that time and have since continued its legacy, carefully preserving its historic character and architectural details, both inside and out.

12/21/2025

Captain Walter D. Whittemore was born in 1834 in East Machias, Maine. He went to sea at the age of 13 and spent decades sailing around the world before settling in Rockville Centre with his family in 1874. Whittemore was one of many ship captains from Maine who moved to the area during this period and made their homes in what became known as “The Grove.”

The Grove referred to the stretch of North Village Avenue between Randall and Lakeview Avenues, named for the large grove of chestnut trees that once covered the area. Whittemore’s residence was the first house built there and stood at the corner of Maine Avenue—a street named in honor of the captains’ home state. In the following years, a sea captains home was on all four corners of Village and Maine.

Whittemore retired from life at sea in 1887 and went on to operate a New York tugboat agency. During their years in Rockville Centre, Captain Whittemore and his wife, Philomena, were actively involved in the Church of the Ascension. He was also a member of the Masons and served as a volunteer firefighter. Captain Whittemore died in 1902.

The house was sold around 1898 to Edwin Patten and his new wife, Eliza, the daughter of Dr. Hutchinson (of the Lincoln Inn, later Frank’s Steaks). Patten moved to RVC in 1900 to raise his family, an was a founding member of the RVC Athletic Club, later the Masons Lodge on Lincoln Ave. He died in 1952 at age 84 and the home changed hands again in 1957, when preparations began to relocate the Rockville Centre Library, which was ultimately constructed on the site after demolition of the home in 1961.

Fortunately, the last remaining home of the sea captains—the Phillips House Museum—still survives today, though it was originally located on North Village Avenue as well.

12/12/2025

F. F. Wilson, Jr. was the son of Francis Wilson, one of Rockville Centre’s early residents, a founder of its Board of Education, and for whom the Wilson School is named. The Wilson family moved to RVC from New York City in 1882, when young F. F. Wilson, Jr. was just 14. He went on to become a well-known local architect and builder, designing summer “cottages” in the 1890s as well as several prominent public buildings, including the power station on Morris Avenue and the Episcopal church rectory on Village Avenue.

Around 1905, Wilson designed his own home at 64 Hempstead Avenue following his marriage to his wife, Carrie. He played a significant role in RVC’s development boom during the 1910s and 1920s and became an outspoken advocate for “fireproof” construction. One notable example is this distinctive Lakeview Avenue home he designed in 1918. At the time, it was the only house on the block and drew attention in architectural publications for its innovative concrete construction.

Wilson’s influence on the village continued into the late 1920s, most notably as the architect for the Hollywood Court development in 1929—leaving a lasting architectural legacy throughout Rockville Centre. We’re lucky to still have this example of his innovative fireproof design still with us and remarkably similar to its original design.

A 1923 article quotes Wilson promoting concrete design, saying: “In place of the contemporary character of frame construction, the concrete house is permanent, comfortable, convenient, economic and beautiful, with negligible depreciation, upkeep and low insurance rates.”

12/09/2025

Thanks to all who came out for the annual Open House! It’s come a great annual RVC tradition! Thanks again to all of our volunteers and to for their generous contributions!

Rockville Centre Historical Society, The Phillips House Museum

03/19/2026

03/06/2026

03/03/2026

02/20/2026

02/08/2026

01/27/2026

01/25/2026

01/21/2026

01/18/2026

12/21/2025

12/12/2025

12/09/2025

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