By Lillian Rumfield Bryson
Nearly 15 years ago, when Ocean Avenue resident, David Lorenzo, w
anted to know more about his recently purchased Queens Land and Title Company home, he visited the Historical Society of the Massapequas. Gratefully, the society had been given a large scrapbook filled to overflowing with vintage newspaper articles on the subject.
ccompanied by promising drawings, ads in metropolitan newspapers touted the benefits of country living. It prompted Lorenzo, who was in the process of restoring his home, to take the research journey back to 1905, when George and Allen Haight, influential Brooklyn brothers, purchased 3,000 acres of land in Massapequa.
Native Americans who spoke of this land as Massapequa (great water land) had thrived here for thousands of years. In 1696, Irish adventurer Major Thomas Jones, namesake for Jones Beach, had built a fine brick house along an Indian trail that is now Merrick Road. Prospering and eventually acquiring 6,000 acres, Jones, known as “The Squire of South Oyster Bay,” fathered a family where future generations, living in grand style, brought us through the Victorian era and into a new century.
Lorenzo’s research revealed a saga of events that helped put 
Massapequa on the map. The sale of lots stretching from the Great South Bay to Jerusalem Avenue and the onset of construction for 40 intended homes “clearly designed for people who could afford and appreciate the finer things in life” added a think big force to what had been the quiet gentility of country living. In order to provide access for boatloads of building materials, the brothers convinced a congressman to have the United States government dredge for canals and deep water channels to the port of New York. Plans included the building of a port in Massapequa that would rival the port in Manhattan.
Bright red Queens Land and Title Company booklets pictured a perfect community claiming to be “New York’s greatest suburban development.” Explosive full-page ads appeared regularly in the New York Tribune and the Brooklyn Eagle. The city-weary were bombarded with reminders to board Long Island Railroad specials leaving for Massapequa. Arriving at the handsome brick depot, prospective buyers of lots and homes were met by the brothers who welcomed them to the Queens Land and Title Company Building just across the road.
Hunting and fishing had long provided for life in the great water land. When locals became guides for city folk, spare rooms in farm houses and the onset of small family hotels offered bed and board for wealthy sportsmen. In 1888, a picturesque multi-guest “Massapequa Hotel,” frequented by the prominent and prosperous “who 
could afford and appreciate the finer things in life,” was built on Ocean Avenue south of Merrick Road. The Haight brothers as Queens Land and Title Company bought the hotel in 1910, a move that failed in the chance that those who shared the lifestyle would also share and support their ambitions. When financial misfortune finally brought construction to a halt, only 12 (some say 10) of the planned 40 homes had been built.
George and Allen Haight rank high among those who created an historic legacy. It has been 110 years since ground was broken for their grand real estate plan. The history of the Massapequas credits them for a dare to think big investment in a future that has favored us with out standing reminders of our past and our progress. Thank you David Lorenzo for your dedication to research and preservation, for keeping in touch all these years with updates, for maintaining the legacy. If only you had been among the gentlemen at the hotel in 1910.
