History Mystery Homes #16

This week, archival photo number "19" has been identified by the author as 24 Westbury Road in the eastern section of Garden City. Note the change with the removal of the front portico and addition on the second floor master bedroom near the driveway. The small third floor window on the left in the original photo is now covered from this angle.

The current owners of the Westbury Road home are Paul and Maureen Leone. Paul is a tax attorney specializing in trusts and estates, as well as a Certified Public Accountant. Maureen is a nurse. They have four children. The Leones bought the home in 1999 from the Giuglianos and have lived there for 14 years.

Beforehand, the Leones lived for eight years at 116 Kilburn Road. The Leones appreciate the beauty of their current home on Westbury Road. It is a large one with 3,600 square feet on half an acre.

"We re-did the leaded glass windows in the library. We brought in a specialist who restored stained glass windows for churches. We have four bedrooms on the second floor that includes a master bedroom. On the third floor are two small bedrooms and a small bath. In one of the third-floor bedrooms is a bell that is the same as the one in the master bedroom," Mrs. Leone said. This was probably used to call the maid.

Many families have come and gone with 24 Westbury Road since it was built sometime before 1926, when an extension was added.

The first owners the author was able to find were E. French Strother (1883-1928) and Grace D. Farley Strother (1883-1966) who bought the house between 1926 and 1928. They had two children: Elizabeth Strother (b.1907) and Edgar French Strother, Jr. (b. 1922).

Earlier, the Strothers had lived in Hempstead and Garden City, including renting 58 Garden Street in town. Mr. Strother was originally a managing editor at Doubleday, Page and Company who became one of the owners of the The Garden Magazine in 1921. The monthly magazine was published between 1905 and 1924. He also wrote a column called, "Fighting German Spies" in The World's Work, a monthly magazine covering all topics in the nation and the world.

However, the 1929 report in The Hempstead Sentinel drew attention to the professional writer with the announcement that "Mr. Strother is engaged in research work for the administration." After helping President Herbert Hoover with his 1928 campaign, he was appointed Hoover's executive clerk. Strother researched issues on social reform, which was of great concern to the president.

During their time with President Hoover, the Strothers lived in Washington D.C. at the Wardman Hotel, where Hoover and other high-ranking officials also had apartments.

Meanwhile, in Garden City, the Strothers rented out their house on Westbury Road to Anne Remsen Webb and Caroline "Carrie" LeRoy Webb. The sisters participated in many charities here and in New York City, including the Samaritan House for the Aged Men & Women and the Roosevelt House, both in New York City.

When the Webbs moved to Garden City they enjoyed helping with the Cathedral activities. Anne volunteered with the Red Cross in Suffolk County during WWI, was president of the Garden City Garden Club for a period and president of the South Side Garden Club for seven years. Both were members of the Colonial Dames of America.

Anne's and Caroline's father was named (ironically for this town) Alexander Stewart Webb (1835- 1911). He was a West Point graduate and a Union major general in the Civil War who earned the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Gettysburg.

And like Alexander T. Stewart, the founder of Garden City, General Webb had his photo taken by Mathew Brady. Brady had been assigned to take photos of generals in the war and was famous for his Civil War battlefield photos.

After the Civil War, General Webb became president of the College of New York City from 1869 to 1902. He wrote The Peninsula: McClellan's Campaign of 1862 and other works on the Civil War. A typical student studied Latin and Greek, along with chemistry, physics and engineering when Webb was with the college. There is a statue of Webb at the City College of New York in Harlem and one in Gettysburg.

The Webb sisters moved to 18 Westbury Road, three doors down, in 1933. Anne passed away in 1943 and Caroline remained there until 1946.

Meanwhile, the Strothers rented out their home at number 24 to others after that, periodically living there themselves until 1946.

Grace Wheelock lived at 24 Westbury Road for eight years from 1946-1954. Not much is known about her, except that a two-car garage was added while she lived there.

Albert N. and Shirley Blanchard moved to the Westbury home in 1956 with their four children, after living at 8 Maple Street in Garden City.

Albert was a manager of pier rentals with the steamship lines for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Betty Blanchard Johnson, one of the Blanchard children, reminisced about their home.

"The library is located behind the living room. It was built as a copy of writer Rudyard Kipling's library with leaded glass windows and a fireplace alcove with inglenook," she said. Rudyard Kipling (1856-1936) was the author of the famous children's story, Jungle Book (1894) and the novel, Kim (1901).

"My mother had the built-in benches in the inglenook removed and she framed the fireplace with pink marble...Sometime in the 1990s I brought my children to see our old house. Seeing it through their eyes was a revelation! I never thought of it as a big house; I never realized the neighborhood had other large pretty homes ... It was a comfortable and well-loved place to grow up," Johnson added.

Dave Blanchard added that in a rather "enlightened" move, his mother had a closet on one side of the front door converted for a "rather unique purpose ... She took out the coat rack and had a wall lamp, a little table, a little chair and a phone placed in the closet so that her four kids could close the door and have private conversations with their ... friends. We took it for granted, of course, but it later occurred to me that we might have been the only house in town with a phone booth."

The Blanchards remained there for 19 years. Afterward, they moved to Rye, New York.

In 1976, the next owner increased the square footage with a 12 x 17 foot rear addition. Soon afterward, professional geologist Patrick Deasy lived there from 1977 to 1980.

Eventually, Nancy and Carl C. Giugliano moved in. They own F & F Roofing in Floral Park with family and also Kelly Window Systems in Farmingdale. They remained at the Westbury Road house until 1999 when they sold it to the current owners, the Leones. Sea Cliff was their new home after that.

Please contact Suzie Alvey at 326-1720 or suziealvey@gmail.com if you recognize any of the homes that have been featured. If anyone has any old books, photos or papers relating to anything in Garden City, please call Alvey. She can scan or photograph the items, while you keep the original, or you can donate it. This will be extremely helpful to the archives at the Garden City Public Library and the Garden City Historical Society.

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