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HOME SALES AND RENTALS Search for newest listings newsday.com/realestate

| FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2014

BY LISA CHAMOFFSpecial to Newsday

Despite a bustling real estate market, withproperties changing hands every day,Long Island still has a number of homesthat are considered heirlooms, remainingin the same family for generations.

Here are three, and another that’s for sale.

SINCE 1799In bucolic Setauket, the view

from the pre-RevolutionaryWar house on the cornerwhere Main Street makes asharp turn (if you go straight, itbecomes Old Field Road)hasn’t changed all that much.

Blanche Davis, 99, oftenshares a pot of afternoon teawith her son, Beverly Tyler,in a windowed room thatonce was the home’s “summerkitchen,” which was attachedto the house in the early 20thcentury.

The house was built in 1740and has been in the familysince 1799, when the originalowner, Amos Smith, sold itand the surrounding 12 acresto Joseph Swift, a ship captainand Tyler’s great-great-grand-father. He raised his familythere, including Tyler’s great-grandmother, Eliza, whosehusband, Charles Tyler, pur-chased the house to keep it inthe family.

They raised nine children,including three daughters,who lived there until 1950,when Tyler’s father, alsonamed Beverly, moved therewith Blanche. (After the elderBeverly Tyler died, Blancheremarried, to a man namedLou Davis.)

“There’s plenty to look at,”says Davis. Across Main Street

to the north is the 1941 GreekRevival post office, designedby architect Richard HavilandSmythe, responsible for manyof the buildings in the area that

philanthropist and business-man Ward Melville helpedrestore. To the west is Setau-ket Millpond.

On the other side is theSetauket Neighborhood House,which was moved to that spotin 1820 and served as an inn.Until recently, Davis was onthe board of the NeighborhoodHouse. Both Davis and Tylerare interested in the area’shistory — Tyler is a historianfor the Three Village Histori-cal Society.

The house has sections from

a few different eras, with wide-plank wood floors and rusticceiling beams. The kitchen,while certainly modern for a274-year-old house, still has avintage look.

While the Amos Smithhouse won’t stay in Tyler’sfamily, the property will even-tually go to the Three VillageCommunity Trust, which willmaintain the house and twoacres, including Patriot’sRock, where a battle of theRevolutionary War wasfought.

familyin the

‘THE STORE’Growing up in a sturdy

brick house on AssociationRoad in Bellport, Louis A.Fuoco III remembers peoplefrom the neighborhood walk-ing through to buy soda,penny candy and sandwiches,or to enjoy macaroni, bread,coffee and cake in the bigcountry kitchen.

“People would walk in andout, literally,” Fuoco says.“Even if we were eating inthe kitchen, people wouldwalk through the kitchen. Itwas a different time period.”

Fuoco’s great-grandfather,Antonio Fuoco, a stonemasonwho had emigrated fromItaly in the 1880s, built thefour-room home in about1898. He opened a bar andgrill and later a grocery storein the house, selling coal andfeed and, later, fuel oil. Eventhen, the house served as amajor community center,with a dance hall on thesecond floor where wed-dings, funerals and parties formen leaving and returningfrom war were held. Anto-nio’s daughters, Carmela andElizabeth, ran the store until1991.

While cleaning the houserecently, Fuoco found docu-ments dating back to 1916from a Sons of Italy groupthat met at the house. Thesegroups were formed in re-sponse to anti-immigrantsentiment.

“It was truly a gatheringplace,” Fuoco says. “It was theheart and soul of this Italianenclave in north Bellport.”

Fuoco’s family put the cor-ner 1-acre property on themarket last fall for $265,000.Listing agent Joyce Roe ofDouglas Elliman Real Estatesays she remembers as a littlegirl buying candy at what wasknown simply as The Store.

Fuoco said the decision tosell the home was tough. “It’sheart-wrenching for me,”Fuoco says. “A lot of us wantto see it saved and don’t knowhow to go about it. Our hope isthat somebody will take aliking to it.”

N ikki Gaeta’s home inWading River is not anantique, but it’s an heir-

loom, all the same.Last summer, Gaeta and her

husband, Dan, bought the

four-bedroom Colonial thatGaeta’s parents had built in1994. They live there withtheir 15-month-old daughterand have another child on theway.

After the Gaetas got mar-ried, they moved into a smallhouse in Ridge that Dan hadbought when he was 21,though he had always lovedthe neighborhood where Nikkigrew up. At the time, Nikki’sparents, Sharon and SteveTricarico, were thinking ofdownsizing. “I mentioned tomy parents how cool it wouldbe to buy this house one day,”she says.

The Tricaricos were on-board with the idea, and hadthe house appraised so bothcouples could settle on a pricethey would be comfortablewith. They eventually movedout of the house and into acondominium in Center Mor-iches.

Nikki says she loves livingin the home where she grewup, which was her parents’dream home.

“They put their heart andsoul into this home,” she says.“It meant so much to themthat their grandchildren aregoing to be in the same roomsthat I was in, and my brotherswere in.” — LISA CHAMOFF

THE OLDFARMSTEAD

The small, three-story farm-house sits in the same place onHicksville Road that it has formore than 80 years, though toRosemarie Columbo, it mightas well be in another world.

Years ago, in rural Bethpage,the house was surrounded byacres of farmland as far as theeye could see. Hicksville Roadlived up to its name as a smallcountry lane covered in gravel.When she wasn’t picking stringbeans or riding the pigs on thefarm, Columbo, who was bornin the home’s living room —back then, with no hospitalnearby, home birth was a neces-sity rather than a trendy choice— spent many of her afternoonsin a one-room schoolhouse onHempstead Turnpike, the kindof building that’s now on dis-play at Old Bethpage VillageRestoration.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’mliving the same life,” saysColumbo, 75. “It is so differentfrom when I grew up.”

Columbo’s maternal grand-father, Joseph Walsh, bought the

property in the late 1800s andestablished a vegetable farm,later giving his daughter andson-in-law, Columbo’s motherand father, a small piece of prop-erty to build the house as a wed-ding gift in 1930. They broughtup five children in the house,

then Columbo raised her threechildren there. At one point,Columbo’s eldest son, TomDiognardi, lived in the housewith his wife, Cindy, and theiryoung daughter.

In all, five generations havelived on the property, with four

living in the house. Later, Tomand Cindy moved into a housethe family built on subdividedproperty next door.

A lot of people have movedaway from the increasinglycrowded Island. Columbo’ssecond husband at one pointwanted to move to Pennsyl-vania, but they never did. “Fatestepped in, and here I am,”Columbo says.

While the area has certainlychanged, the house has mostlystayed the same, aside from anextension with an open kitchenand dining room that Columboadded in 1998. While the additionlooks new, it reflects the old-fash-ioned farmhouse character of therest of the house.

The Victorian-style home thatColumbo’s grandparents builtaround 1900 still stands, though adifferent family now owns it.

The family hasn’t made anydecisions about what will even-tually happen to Columbo’schildhood home, but having itremain with yet another genera-tion is still in the back of theirminds.

“I can’t imagine anyone elseliving here, other than family,”Cindy Diognardi says.

Rosemarie Columbo,with Tootsie, in theBethpage home whereshe was born and, atleft, out front, asfamily looks on.Below, an undatedphoto of roller-skaterspassing the house onHicksville Road/Route107.

ON THE COVER Nikki Gaeta with daughter, Celia, and abovewith Celia and husband, Dan, at the house where she grew up.

This Bellport home is on themarket for $265,000.

Blanche Daviswith her son,Beverly Tyler.The house datesto 1740, but theirfamily has had itonly since 1799.

A generational home begins

Homes that have shelteredmany generations

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