Wednesday, October 17, 2012

'Guinea Chase Farm'

'Guinea Chase Farm', the Mrs. J. Norman de R. Whitehouse estate designed by Hoppin, Koen & Huntington c. 1906 in Old Westbury.  The estate was leased by Joseph P. Grace while 'Tullaroan' was being built and subsequently by Ogden L. Mills while his estate in Woodbury was being finished.  In 1915 the estate was sold to Sidney Whelan, son of George Whelan, president of the United Cigar Stores Company.  The residence was eventually demolished and the estate subdivided, click HERE to see where 'Guinea Chase Farm' stood on google earth.  Photo from the NYTimes archives.

6 comments:

Kellsboro Jack said...

Hard to discern from the image, but was it a shingle style Colonial? It looks like it had good proportions.

On the wikimap just to the south of Guinea Chase is Arlough. Is that a private training track?

Zach L. said...

Yes indeed...built by the current owner I believe.

I wish I had a better picture of this place...hopefully one will surface that I can post soon.

Anonymous said...

One can assume Guinea Woods Road had some relationship to this farm property before the street name was removed after much protest.

Zach L. said...

As a product of the East Williston School District myself I always wondered what the real story was behind the road name.

Growing up they told us in school that the stretch of Glen Cove Road between Hillside and the Service Road was a freed slave community (I assume predating the abolishment of slavery in New York State in 1827) but I haven't found much online.

There was also an estate in the area known as 'Guinea Hollow Farm'.

It was labeled as Guinea Town Road on the1906, 1914 and 1927 maps. By 1939 it was labeled Guinea Woods Road.

Anonymous said...

I was always told that the name reflected the native guinea hen population in the surrounding woods.

Anonymous said...

There's more discussion of the "Guinea Town" area of Old Westbury here.

But the farm's name might also have been a pun. Norman Whitehouse was an American stockbroker who was a graduate of Oxford University, so he would have been familiar with the British term "guinea" for a kind of coin. So while the farm's name referred to the neighborhood's history, it might also have been an allusion to his "chase" of "guineas" as a stockbroker.