History Mystery Homes #19

The mystery home this week is number "17." It is a stucco Dutch colonial with a wing on each side of the main house and three "dog houses" on the third floor. The portico has columns in front. It can be anywhere in town. Do you recognize it?

Residents have been asking the author if she knows where the homes are located ahead of time. The answer is no; it's a "history mystery" to all. Except for the first one in the series, either the homes were found by the author later or someone e-mailed/called in the answer.

Another question has arisen as to the meaning of the words, "hoest" and "hogen." As explained in the first article in the series, and bears repeating, the volunteer at the Garden City Public Library assigned those names as he was digitizing the archives. "Hoest" (ho-est) refers to homes in the Estates section and "Hogen" (ho-gen) Homes in the general area, so they could be anywhere in Garden City.

Number "40" has been identified as 10 Claydon Road by Eileen Moynahan. The 2,200 square foot fieldstone, shingle and brick farm colonial is close to Washington Avenue and was built by the Mott Brothers in 1937. It is one of five or six in the Mott section in that particular style, according to the current homeowners.

The three-bedroom, two-bath home has a screened in front porch. In the late 1930s, the Mott Brothers built 400 homes on property that was originally used as a hospital in connection with the old Camp Mills. The Mott houses have a charming English aura with some having dark timbers used as decoration inside and out.

Streets in the Mott section include Claydon, Kenwood, Kingsbury, Wyatt and Huntington Road and are some of the only curved streets in town. Osborne Road is not part of the Mott development. The street was laid out before the others, yet most homes are newer than the Mott ones. (The Motts also developed a section of Mineola, near Old Country Road.)

Harold G. Garrett (b. approx. 1904 in New York) and Effie M. Garrett (b. approx. 1904 in New Jersey) were the first owners of 10 Claydon Road. Earlier, they were married in 1930. They lived in the Bronx and Rye, New York when Effie was an operator for the components industry and he was a clerk for the Daily News.

Seven years later they bought their home for $7,700 from the Mott Brothers. It didn't appear they had any children, but Effie's mom lived with the couple. By 1940 Harold was a statistician in the publishing field. After they moved from Garden City, Harold became manager of research for the New York News in 1946. The Garretts lived in Garden City for a maximum of five years.

By 1942 Edmund Ludwid Geasey (b. 1890 in Pennsylvania) and Ida Pearl Wien Geasey (b. 1899 in Pennsylvania) moved in. Married in 1921 in Philadelphia, they lived in Baltimore and Washington D. C. before arriving in Garden City. In 1928 their only son, Robert Geasey was born. By 1930 Edmund was a buyer for a furniture company. During their time in Garden City, Edmund was an executive while Ida volunteered at Mercy Hospital.

Like the Garretts, they also stayed only a short while in Garden City. They moved to Hartford, Connecticut where Edmund became president of Flint Bruce Company, a large home furnishings and interior design store for a few years. By 1956, Ida and Edmund teamed up to run Children's Toggery, a clothing store in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Edmund passed away in 1970 and Ida in 1978.

The third owners of the home were John N. Dyer (b. approx. 1911 in Massachusetts) and Priscilla F. Dyer (b. 1908 in New York). They married between 1935 and 1937. By 1940, both had completed their bachelor's degrees and John was an engineer in the television industry, living with Priscilla in Greenwich, Connecticut. They had a daughter, Ann, who was born that year. During WWII, John was a radio engineer for the Army. The couple moved to Claydon Road in approximately 1946 and Priscilla Dyer became a volunteer with Glen Cove Community Hospital.

John N. Dyer worked as an electronics engineer for Airborne Instruments Laboratory that comprised a group of former government scientists. Working up the corporate ladder from vice president in 1957, Dyer became AIL's third president in 1968. In 1942, Airborne Instruments Laboratory, originally situated at 150 Old Country Road in Mineola (later Stewart Avenue in Garden City East and Farmingdale), produced the Magnetic Airborne Detector, which located enemy submarines in the North Atlantic during WWII. Its air traffic control systems were used during the Berlin Airlift and afterward. AIL continued working with the military with its portable battlefield radar used in Viet Nam(1966) and other projects.

After WWII, AIL ventured into civilian life with inventions such as a mass screening device for pap smears (1957), antennas for homing signals and voice communications (1963), laser communications in space (1960s), infrared technology (1964), radio broadcast microphone for journalists on TV (1968), airborne radar to detect small boats in distress (1970), an instrument landing system for aircraft carriers (1971) and many more patented inventions. John and Priscilla Dyer moved to Oyster Bay after Garden City.

The house changed hands again when the Athana family moved in by 1950. John J. Athana (b. 1900) was a sales manager for the metro division with Prentice Hall Publishers and the second person in the house to work for a publishing company. Ruth was his English-born wife who became a naturalized United States citizen (b. 1907). Like the Geaseys, they lived in Pennsylvania before arriving in Garden City.

The Athana family lived in the home for about 36 years, the longest residents in number 10 Claydon Road. John Athana passed away in 1983 and Ruth died in 1986. One of her two grown daughters sold the home to the current owners.

The fifth family (and current one) has two children and added on a large family room and full bathroom to the house. They have lived at 10 Claydon Road for 27 years. The husband's mom moved to Whitehall Boulevard as a child in 1925 and he grew up in Garden City as well.  Almost a century has passed with four generations of his family living in Garden City. This is a testament to how much residents enjoy living here.

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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