Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Frank Babbott Residence

The rear of the Frank Babbott estate in Glen Cove.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

did you check out the remains of seamoore while you were down that way? i was just there last sunday

rbenoit90@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

Where are these "remains" of Seamoor, in someone's living room? Seamoor was located where today sit dozens of single-famiy detached houses in a housing development off of Duck Pond rd. Enquiring minds would like to know.

Zach L. said...

Jeff,

I've always been confused on the location of Seamoor. A 1914 map of Glen Cove shows land next to the Frank Babbott estate as belonging to Charles Millard Pratt, so I always assumed the house sat over there. But of course as you mention it was on Duck Pond Road. I don't doubt that, I just find it odd that all of the Pratt family would build their estates along the water except for the eldest son.

Anonymous said...

Zach- Your comments make sense, the same question has occurred to me.Is it possible that there was an "early" or "first" Seamoor of some type across the road from the Babott house (the road that runs downhill to the water)since there were and still are remains of some type in that area and since I recall what those remains looked like almost fifty years ago (but there was no mansion at that time or ruins of one - there was just a two- story brick building(greenhouse complex?)with tennis courts behind it(you can find piping and faucet handles deep in the brush in this area), a cement root cellar(?) built into a hillside and a walled garden of some type nearby. You can see the outlines of this walled area on google earth and -look closely- even see a section of collapsing brick wall.Could there have been a house nearby this area even before my time that had burned down and could the "new" Seamoor have been built on the high ground behind the Gribbon School where there is today a neighborhood. I very clearly had seen the Seamoor depicted in Joan Harrison's book Glen Cove and know for a fact that it was where I have said it was.I hope we can work out this mystery, there should be a record somewhere if indeed there was a fire on the Pratt property in the area which we have been dicussing -i.e.- on the sloping hillsides north of Killenworth and Poplar Hill and west of the Babott house. All right you forensic detectives -let's get to work on this. Jeff51

Anonymous said...

More on Seamoor - I believe that Seamoor, standing where it did in proximity to the Gribbon school(Gribbon built after Seamoor was taken down), was in the far south-eastern corner of the Pratt land holdings. As to why Charles Millard would have built here rather than closer to the water could it have been because this location was much closer to the Nasssu railroad station and to the Nassau Country Club, both of which he was closely involved with. Access to Seamoor was possible only via a long, unlit, unpaved road through the woods that led to Old Tappan Road approximately where Duck Pond meets Old Tappan today.There was no road, in or out, in another location/direction that I am aware of. Still, its location here rather than closer to the shoreline, is indeed questionable.

Anonymous said...

Please note correction: in all my previous posts wherein I mention Duck Pond Rd. what I actually meant to refence was WALNUT rd. This road used to end at Forest avenue but was extended north to Old TAppan rd.(thru what had been the Charles Millard Pratt(Seamoor) property) in the early 1970's.