She won a house in a raffle, and took the cash instead

Summer is a great time to unwind, relax and spend time with family. If you’re on the event planning committee for the RVC Historical Society, it’s also a great time to start thinking about fall programs at the Phillips House Museum. Our team has put together some wonderful events for the fall, which I’ll list below.

Today we’ll share some important housing developments that took place in the village around the turn and early decades of the 20th century.

At the end of the 19th century, almost all the land south of Merrick Road — then called Southern Boulevard — and east of Park Avenue was owned by the Davison Family. As the need for housing increased, the family began subdividing the land into the Davison Park housing development. The home at 84 S. Marion, at the corner of Arlington Place, was likely constructed in the 1890s in Dutch colonial style, with a large barn and carriage house in the rear.

At the time, the property extended from Marion to Davison Place. By 1924, the property was subdivided and a second home was built at the corner of Davison and Arlington. In 1983, the property was subdivided yet again to construct 15 Arlington. While local legend has it that New York City Mayor John Hylan used the home as a summer residence in the 1910s, perhaps the most famous residents of 84 S. Marion were the Rosenbaum/Russell family who occupied it in the 1920s.

Harry Rosenbaum was an early investor in the city’s garment real estate business, and his daughter Edith became famous as a saleswoman, a fashion journalist and a buyer for many high-end designers in New York and Paris. (She later changed her name to Russell to avoid antisemitism.) During World War I she took a break from fashion and became one of the first female wartime journalists, reporting from the front lines. But perhaps most notably, Edith was a survivor of the Titanic, and her story was featured in the book “A Night to Remember.”

With housing development in full swing by the 1930s, the Rockville Centre Building and Industrial Exposition was founded to connect builders, architects and prospective homebuyers to boost the local industry. It was an annual event in a tent on open land at the intersection of North Forest and the Long Island Rail Road tracks. To attract a larger crowd in 1937, the club raffled off a “model home” at 881 N. Village — the “home of the future,” with a modern exterior design and modern conveniences inside on the interior, a departure from the more popular building styles of the time.

The square house had a white exterior and a copper roof, steel-edged corner windows, indirect lighting, gas heat, an electric kitchen, and central air conditioning. Gertz’s department store provided all the furniture, and Westinghouse provided all the appliances. For three weeks in the summer of 1937, over 15,000 people came to tour the home, at Village Avenue and Allen Road, a newly developing area of town.

The winner, Mrs. Grace Houghton, of Rockville Centre, was announced at Hickey Field after a parade through town. Houghton opted to take $12,000 in cash instead of the house, which was then sold to A. Heim, of New York City, in January 1938. The exterior of the house remains almost entirely intact despite its 87 years on North Village Avenue.

There are accompanying photographs for these stories and more on our website.

This fall, the Rockville Centre Historical Society will offer four programs:

Is My Home Historic? How to Gather Research on Your Historic Home. Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. Presented virtually.

The Nuts & Bolts of Historic Preservation. Oct. 23, at 7 p.m., at the Phillips House Museum.

Long Island Author Series, featuring Tim Keough, author and assistant history professor at CUNY: In Levittown’s Shadow: Poverty in America’s Wealthiest Postwar Suburb. Oct. 8, at 7 p.m., at the museum.

Long Island Author Series, featuring Dr. Paul van Wie, history professor at Molloy University: van Wie will speak about ecological and historic events that occurred on the Hempstead Plains, an area that covered 40,000 acres of Nassau County. Nov. 7, time TBD, at the museum.

Visit our website, rvchs.org, email us at rvchistoricalsociety@gmail.com, or call (516) 670-5737 for more information about these programs and other upcoming events.
Until next time — enjoy your summer, and go make your own history!

Jim Belling is a member of the board of trustees of the Phillips House Museum and the Rockville Centre Historical Society.