Douglaston Historic District

This area reflects three centuries of Queens history and development, and provides an important example of an early twentieth century planned suburb. Development of this suburban community was adapted to the site, formerly a nineteenth century estate for the wealthy Douglas family.
Previously, the land was seized by Thomas Hicks in the 1660s, then adapted for agriculture by Wynant Van Zandt, a prominent New York merchant and city alderman, in 1813. George Douglas, an affluent Scottish immigrant acquired the estate from Robert B. Van Zandt in May 1835. The property passed on to the elder Douglas's son, William Proctor Douglas in 1862. Much of the landscaping, including a variety of exotic specimen trees, survives from the Douglas estate.

Most of the houses, which number over six hundred, were constructed in the early twentieth century as part of the planned community of Douglas Manor. It was developed by the Rickert-Finlay Company, as part of the residential development of Queens, following its creation and annexation to the City of Greater New York in 1898. The houses were designed by local Queens architects in a variety of styles, including variants of the Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, English Cottage, and Mediterranean Revival. One of America's first successful female architects, Josephine Wright Chapman, designed eight houses in the 1910s and 1920s. The Cornelius Van Wyck House, built circa 1735 as a Dutch farmstead, is the oldest extant house in the district and one of the oldest in New York City.

A small pending extension of 22 buildings, situated on or near Douglaston Parkway south of the existing Douglaston Historic District, includes 18 single-family houses, the red brick and limestone ornamented Colonial Revival-style Public School 98 (1930-31); the Colonial Revival-style Community Church of Douglaston (1923-24), by architect William Neil Smith, with annex (c.1953), and a Tudor Revival-style brick apartment building (1928-30) by architect Alexander Vierling, located at 39-30 West Drive.

The district extension provides a rare example, in New York City, of a transition from nineteenth-century farmhouses to suburban-style construction. Several of the houses are wood frame, clapboard construction, and date back to the mid-19th century, when the land was first sub-divided; however, most were constructed from the 1890s to 1920 when the area was developed as a suburb. This latter group retains many of the original elements typical of the various styles in which they were built, including Italianate, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Arts and Crafts, and Greek Revival. The park-like setting of the neighborhood is enhanced by these single-family buildings on unusually large lots; they include an outstanding example of Arts and Crafts design (18 Cherry Street, 1900-01), with rubble stone foundation, wood casement windows, and exposed beams and rafters; and two Dutch Colonial Revival, gambrel-roofed residences, built circa 1910, which adorn the same block (39-15 and 39-27 Douglaston Parkway).©2014