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Community Corner

History Mystery Homes #18

Eighteenth in a series of unidentified home photos found in the village archives.

The mystery home this week is number "16." Do you know where this house is?

Number "27" has been identified by Joe Farkas. He lives at 19 St. James Street North in a house that looks similar to number "27." 5 Butler Place is located between Stewart Avenue and St. James Street North, and one block east of Washington Avenue. It is a 3,500 square foot brick colonial that sits on approximately one half acre property. The facade has an interesting brick pattern on all the sides and has a Spanish tile roof.

A small second floor wrought iron balcony sits over the front door and two more short wrought iron balconies are in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and dining room. These appear original to the house.

The home was built in 1915, according to Trisha Galligan, the current owner with her husband, Drew. She was kind enough to give the author a tour of her beautiful home. On the first floor there is a corner fireplace in the dining room. The fireplace floor originally opened to the basement below where the wood ashes would be dumped after use. There was no need for the maid to traipse through the dining room with ashes that might scatter. The wood floor foyer features a winding staircase leading up to the second floor. There are three bedrooms and two baths on the second floor and two bedrooms, one bath and a cedar closet on the third floor. The Galligans moved the main beam of the house in the basement to allow for a larger play area for the children and a separate laundry area.

The author was not able to find the first owner of the Butler Place home, since the Village of Garden City records were destroyed in a fire around 1919. Edna (b. 1883) and Peter R. Blong (b. 1881 in Missouri- d. 1967 in Floral Park) were probably the second owners of the house. They moved from New York City and were living in Garden City as early as 1923. It's not clear whether they lived in another Garden City house at that time or at number 5. However, before 1930 the couple was living on Butler Place. It appears that they had no children.

In the 1932 phone book the Blongs had a three-digit phone number indicating they were one of the original families to get a phone number in town. In 1931 the Blongs took down the original garage. They erected a larger, two-car garage with servants quarters on the second floor that matched the original architecture. They lived in the house for over 20 years, and possibly as many as 30.

Thomas M. and Mary Cook bought the house in 1953. He was a paper chemist. Perhaps he worked with Doubleday Publishing. They stayed in the home approximately seven years.

Then, around 1960 the F. M. Shatton family moved in and lived there for nine years. George Boyle (1930- 2011) and his wife Virginia bought the house in 1969. According to his obituary, George "graduated from Columbia Law School in 1954. His law career started in NYC with the firm Mitchell, Petty followed by Brown and Wood, where he was a senior partner. In 1988, he joined Poyner and Spruill, LLC, in Raleigh, NC. Throughout his career, he specialized in public finance. He was an invaluable legal advisor to the former state treasurer, Harlan Boyles and local municipalities."

Chris Boyle, their son, said, "We moved from 119 Pine Street to 5 Butler Place. The day of the move, we followed the moving truck on our bikes ... My mom said the house was built as a country house for a big-wig opera guy. We had servant's buzzers in the dining room, living room and each of the bedrooms. In the kitchen was the box indicating which room was buzzing for the maid. The buzzers still worked when I was a kid."

The garage "...has a small room to the side that stored the coal used for the house. The servants had a coal-burning stove on the second floor where they lived [over the garage]. We used the servants quarters as a playhouse," Boyle continued. Before his time, both "the house and garage had natural gas lines installed with electric through the same line."

The Boyles lived at the Butler Place house for 35 years and were the owners who spent the longest amount of time there. The Boyles lived in the large house with their five children. They extended the kitchen in the back of the house to add a casual dining/great room. George and Virginia Boyle eventually moved to North Carolina.

In 2004, Drew Galligan and his wife, Trisha, were looking for a house. They found out about the house sale since Drew's father was best friends with George Boyle in college. The Galligans are now happily ensconced there for nine years with their three children.

Please contact Suzie Alvey at 326-1720 or suziealvey@gmail.com if you recognize any of the homes that have been featured. Also, 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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