James Balletta Owner/Broker
(516) 921-5025
C.R.B., G.R.I., C.R.S.

 President, Licensed Real Estate Broker

 -MLS Board of Directors- 

-Chairperson North Shore MLS-

Selling Homes in Syosset and the North Shore Area for over

48 years

Beginnings:
When Oyster Bay Town purchased what is now Brookville from the Matinecocks in the mid-1600's, the area was known as Suco's Wigwam. Most pioneers were English, many of them Quakers. They were soon joined by Dutch settlers from western Long Island, who called the surrounding area Wolver Hollow, apparently because wolves gathered at spring-fed Shoo Brook to drink. For most of the 19th Century, the village was called Tapentown after a prominent family. Brookville became the preferred name after the Civil War and was used on 1873 maps.

Turning Points:
Brookville's two centuries as a farm and woodland backwater changed quickly in the early 1900s as wealthy New Yorkers built lavish mansions. By the mid-1920s, there were 22 estates, part of the emergence of Nassau's North Shore Gold Coast. One was Broadhollow, the 108-acre spread of attorney-banker-diplomat Winthrop W. Aldrich, which had a 40-room manor house. The second owner of Broadhollow was Alfred Gwynn Vanderbilt II, who was owner of the Belmont and Pimlico racetracks. In 1931, estate owners banded together to win village incorporation to head off what they saw as undesirable residential and commercial development in other parts of Nassau County.

Reluctant College Town:
Brookville is the home of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, but it didn't want to be for fear a college would draw troublesome traffic and other activity. Long Island University in 1947 bought the 178-acre Majorie Merriweather Post estate just outside the village. Brookville battled six years in court to stop creation of the college and lost. The village in 1954 was allowed to annex the campus land so it could have some control over its development. Relations between two are much better now, and the campus is noted as the home of the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts. Also in Brookville is the DeSeversky Conference Center of the New York Institute of Technology. The center was formerly in Templeton, mansion of socialite and businessman Winston Guest.

Strange Interlude:
The federal government in 1958 built a Nike guided missile installation in Brookville for use in case the nation was attacked. The site later became a nature preserve.

Where to Find More:
"Early History of the Village of Brookville," by Harry Macy, "Village of Brookville Reference Guide," a village publication, at Jericho Public Library.