The Grove Park Hotel was built around 1899 by O. W. Humphrey. It could accommodate 200 guests and was known for its spacious piazzas. Harry E. Von Riper was the manager in 1901. It was located in a grove of oak trees with cottages on the property. In 1902 a room rented for $3.00 a day. At the turn of the 20th century, the Grove Park, Crystal Lake Hotel and Woodcleft Inn were the centers of the summer social scene.
Crystal Lake Hotel, formerly located on So. Grove Street (now Guy Lombardo Avenue) and Southside Ave., overlooked Crystal Lake. With accomodations for 150 guests, the proprietors of this hotel were Edward (Ward) P. Frost and Allie E. Frost. Opened circa 1895, the Crystal Hotel burned down in the late 1950's.
Woodcleft Inn, located on Front Street at the head of Woodcleft Canal, housed 200 guests. The hotel was built in 1896 by John J. Randall and William G. Miller. The Inn eventually became a Catholic orphanage maintained by the St. Vincent DePaul Society. In the early 1940's, the Village purchased the structure to enlarge Randall Park.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
Brooklyn Waterworks, a three-story brick Romanesque Revival design building was designed in 1888 by Frank Freeman. Freeman (1852-1940) a noted Brooklyn architect also designed the Eagle Warehouse and Storage Company in 1893 and the City of Brooklyn Fire Headquarters in 1892. Originally called the Milburn Pumping Station, the Brooklyn Waterworks was one of a series of pumping stations that provided water from a 2,000-acre watershed to the City of Brooklyn. By the 1920's, upstate New York became the major supplier of water to New York City. The 48-inch-wide iron conduit that runs from Freeport to Queens was used for emergency reserve until New York City sold the site to Nassau County in 1977. In 1986, Freeport gave the Brooklyn Waterworks landmark status. That same year, Gary Melius of Carle Place, bought the site for $1.4 million. Efforts to turn the building into condos and later a nursing home have failed.
Sources:
American Institute of Architects, Long Island Chapter. AIA Architecture Guide to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island. Dover, NY: 1992.
-- "Long Island: A Romanesque Revival Water-Pumping Station to Be Expanded and Made Into 48 Condominiums." The New York Times. 7 September 1986: 56.
-- "New Promise for Neglected Landmark." Newsday. 20 January 1995: D1.
