Island Park home bears ad of Lynbrook speakeasy

When Island Park resident Eddy Piazza bought a home damaged by Hurricane Sandy in a state auction a little over a year ago, he didn’t realize he was also buying a piece of history.

He and his partner, who plan to rebuild and sell the old wooden house on the corner of Long Beach Road and Parente Lane, began stripping it down, and were given a glimpse back to the Roaring Twenties.

“When we took the siding off, we were looking at it, and if you look close, there’s quite a few different signs on it,” Piazza said. “This must have been like a billboard, you know?”

Faded paint, spelling out “Blossom Heath Inn,” could be made out along the top of the naked south-facing side of the house, as the pair of homebuyers realized they had discovered an advertisement for a former Lynbrook hotspot that had been covered up for decades.

“It’s an exciting find to see something from such an important part of Lynbrook’s past,” Lynbrook Historian Arthur Mattson said. “The Blossom Heath Inn was a business with a history that really should be brought alive once again.”

The business, on Merrick Road, opened in 1916, and was the most notorious “roadhouse” on the South Shore, according to Mattson’s book, “The History of Lynbrook.” It was known for its tasty food, elegant service and brought in an array of dance bands and singers to entertain its guests.

One regular performer, “Texas” Guinan — known to greet arriving drinkers in the 1920s and 30s with her trademark, “Hello Suckers!” — showed she could bring in business better than the men could through her lively interactions with the Inn’s patrons, Mattson writes.

An advertisement of the Blossom Heath Inn in a 1918 edition of the Nassau Post states that “auto parties will find this a most delightful place for lunch,” and touts its 100 parking spaces as well as its remodeled dining room that can fit 400 guests.

But according to Mattson’s book, the Blossom Heath Inn turned its focus to illegal drinking, and in 1929, after months of raucous partying and drunks falling down the front steps of the establishment, the Nassau County District Attorney orchestrated the arrest, trial and conviction of William Barnes, the Inn’s owner. They charged him with “maintaining a public nuisance.”

“It intersects with the prohibition era, with the days of gangsters and illegal gambling,” Mattson said of the place, “and it’s just a tremendously interesting time in the 1920s and 30s.”

The Island Park house that bears the Lynbrook business’s name has a history of its own: the front portion served the community as an antique and doll repair shop.

Roberta Scully, 82, who has lived in Island Park since she was 8 years old, said she used to visit the little store in the 1950s with her friend, who collected dolls. The owner of the shop, who she recalled only as Mrs. Frasier — even unsure of the spelling — was skilled at remedying the damaged figurines.

“There wasn’t anything that she wasn’t able to fix,” Scully said, adding that the store also sold china cups and saucers. “I don’t know where she got her stuff, but she had beautiful things.”

When the faint advertisement was pointed out to her, she said that memories of the shop and the friendly woman who worked there flooded back. “It would be nice if they saved the building,” Scully added.

But the owners have other plans.

“We’re setting it down, it’s going to stay the same shape as it is, but it’s going to be completely remodeled,” Piazza said. “As far as the outside, we’re going to probably just cover it up, so anybody who’s going to get pictures of it better get them soon.”