On the front page of this Aug. 11 issue of the Enterprise Pilot you will see an article about an unusual fund-raiser organized by the Oyster Bay Preservation Roundtable for getting the Trousdell house ready for sale. You will see, in the article, photographs we and Gregory Druhak took of the house during an estate sale directed by John Dupres of Oyster Bay.
The house has been here since 1844, and is an example of the summer cottage era of Oyster Bay; it is the gateway to the village with ties to the Roosevelts, the Irvins, the Garvers, the Trousdells, and the McCoons, so let’s save it!
It was wonderful to see the interior of this great house. We hope seeing the pictures will bolster your desire to preserve the house and will encourage you to make a donation to the North Shore Land Alliance to preserve it. People came to the sale as much to see the house, as to buy the items on sale. We think the house is deserving of saving and what is best, the process is all open and straightforward.
Local people know the house; local organizations are desirous of it being saved. It will add to the streetscape of the hamlet of Oyster Bay the way the Octagon Hotel has. To us, the Octagon house is the birthday cake on the corner of Spring Street and Audrey Avenue and it gives us a lift, every time we drive by it. We believe the Trousdell House will give us a similar feeling of well-being when we drive by and see it being well used.
On Sunday, Aug. 7 we drove by Snouder’s Corner Drugstore and were delighted to see it ablaze with red, white and blue buntings and great posters in the windows. What Snouder’s Foundation’s board needs to do is to come before the public and let us know what they plan to do. If they have no plan on how to proceed with the restoration of the landmark building, the public needs to know about it. Maybe what they need is a Request for Proposals – suggestions on what to do with the property.
Most important, to succeed there needs to be some transparency in whatever is going on or not going on. Here in Oyster Bay we have lived with a lot of controversy about buildings and projects but after we all have our say, we all come together and things get done.
Frank Genovese and Eugene King acknowledged feeling as if they were caring for an historic part of Oyster Bay as they ran their pharmacy and we celebrate them for that.
Everyone wants to see Snouder’s preserved. How to do it is the question. Hopefully the present stakeholders will allow the process to open up to the general public – the community that in its own way – owns Oyster Bay.
At one time, the Oyster Bay Civic Association was going to have a forum on Snouder’s with the current foundation board speaking. We were all looking forward to hearing what they had to say. The meeting was cancelled by them. We hope they will reconsider that invitation and come talk to the residents of the hamlet. Together they can find a way to preserve Snouder’s – something that there truly is no opposition to. It’s the process not the project that needs explaining. – DFK
