My History House #9: 10 Bayberry Avenue

Lisa and Terence Kenny's family could be living on Mineola Road in Garden City right now, and not on Bayberry Avenue. Where is Mineola Road? It can be seen on the 1914 map of Garden City, where Bayberry is now.

Back then, Mineola Road swung down from the corner of Old Country Road and Washington Avenue and cut diagonally through the area. It was drawn in a complimentary curved sweep to the streets of Osborne, Huntington and Prescott Roads in the future Mott section further south.

1914's Huntington Road was an extension of our current Eleventh Street. So the old Huntington Road east of Washington Avenue became Kingsbury Road and the old Prescott Road became Claydon Road. Needless to say, that area was re-configured and Mineola Road and its twin, Lawrence Road, were never laid out. The name "Mineola Plaza" is probably derived from that early Mineola Road in Garden City.

Village records show that 10 Bayberry was built in 1927. The first owner was Agnes Capelle (1885- 1966) who lived in Hollis, Queens. She worked with Herbert Harris in the ladies hat wholesale industry. In 1926 the industrious couple applied for a patent for adjustable hats for men and women. It seems she rented the Bayberry house out to a few families and lived with her widowed mom and her siblings, all single.

The first renters were Elizabeth Brown (1886-1977) and Edgar E. Brown (1895-1951). Edgar was in motor transportation during WWI. This was an up and coming field since horses and mules had been used before then. Military field testing had been done and trucks were the new, added mode of transportation in 1917. But even so, a great portion of troops and goods still traveled by animal.

In 1925 the Browns were living on Second Street in Mineola with her four children from a previous marriage. Edgar and her two sons were all chauffeurs, a natural extension from Edgar's military days. The Browns moved to the Garden City house in approximately 1933 with some of their children. In 1934, no one was listed yet at number 12, 14 or 16 Bayberry. The Browns only stayed two years and moved back to Mineola by 1935. Later, Edgar was a night watchman in a department store.

In 1935 the second family moved in. They were  Beatrice M. Schoen (b.1899) and Herman G. Schoen (1900-1987). Beatrice was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States as a baby with her parents. The Schoens started life together in Ozone Park, Queens in 1923. He was a book printer. When they moved in to number 10 they had two young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. By 1940 two sons had also been born and Herman's Mom moved in. It might have been tight quarters but they bought their house from Agnes Capelle in 1946. By then, daughters Betty and Marjorie were clerks. The Schoens lived there for 30 years until 1965 when they sold the house.

The third family to live in the house was Karl Winski and Lydia Kubikowski Winski. The Winskis came from Brooklyn.

"I'm in the meat line; sausage manufacturing in a Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn. My cousins still own Sikorski in Greenpoint. The family business started in 1927 with my grandfather, Theodore, who was a Russian immigrant. My dad was born in Russia also and started working for his Dad in 1936. I'm the first generation born in the U.S. I started at work in 1954. I worked six to seven days a week, leaving at four in the morning and getting home at nine or ten at night. I was quite busy," Karl Winski said. Sikorski's currently sells kielbasa, sausages, kiszka, hurka, babka and all sorts of Polish imports.

After the Winskis moved in, their two sons, Christopher and Mark, were born. They were happy with the Garden City School system with its excellent reputation and Mr. Winski enjoyed watching his boys on the football and soccer fields.

Winski said, "The house was old-fashioned with linoleum and knotty pine walls in the kitchen. No remodeling was ever done. We got rid of that in a hurry. We had an unfinished basement...built like a bomb shelter. It's an extremely well-built house. It has three bedrooms with old-fashioned steam radiators for heat. The house was always warm with thick plaster and wire lathe walls."

In 1977 the Winskis remodeled the front of the house as well as the kitchen. The sun porch was originally an outside porch. The Winskis removed the French doors that led out to the porch, installed a support beam across the ceiling and added radiators.

The Winskis moved to Valley Stream in 1998 after living on Bayberry for 33 years, the longest of any owners of the Bayberry house. One son currently lives nearby and the other out of state.

The fourth and current family is Terence and Lisa Kenny who have lived on Bayberry for 15 years. Like the Winskis, they also had two sons after they moved in. Jack is now 14 and Ryan is 12.

Terence Kenny is a history buff. He provided blueprints for his home. It shows a two-story side hall colonial home that is approximately 1,600 square feet located on a 40 x 100 square foot property with a detached single garage. The application for a building permit showed that his house was built in the "Mineola Plaza" area by Supreme Homes Co., Inc. of Pearl Street, Inwood, New York. The estimated cost to build it was $7,000-7,500.

The blueprints had some facets unique to that time period. A coal bin for the basement was sketched in on the current driveway side. The ice box next to the kitchen on the first floor was by the side door so the iceman would have easy access delivering it. In 1927 coal was the common method of heating a home, not oil or gas. The coal man would make a delivery by opening up the coal chute to the basement and pouring the coal into the bin below. Coal stoves then heated the house.

In the blueprints, the back of the Bayberry kitchen was divided up to contain an alcove area with a flip-down ironing board attached to the wall, next to a closet. Next to it a small, built in "breakfast nook" was designed.

This same basic house design can be found with a total of eight houses on Bayberry Avenue and eight directly behind them on Bluebell Court. All are centered on the block, with newer homes towards Washington Avenue and Lefferts Road. However, 10 Bayberry has a garage that is at a right angle to the house. It faces the west and might have been the model house for the block since it had a driveway between 100 to 125 feet to Washington Avenue. Now newer homes occupy the space.

While doing house maintenance, Terence Kenny found three interesting items. The first was a single-edged gold tone razor with the inscription, "Ever-Ready, Brooklyn" in the attic insulation. The style is from around 1912 (according to E-Bay items currently for sale).

The second "find" is a milk bottle with the name "Reid's Union Dairy, 531 Waverly Avenue, Brooklyn" Kenny found while insulating a wall. According to a Hempstead Sentinel ad, Reid's opened in 1874 as an ice cream corporation and it expanded into dairy products such as milk, cream, butter and buttermilk in 1888. Reid's started delivering to Nassau County in 1927, just as Kenny's house was being built.

The last item Kenny found was a "Horton's Beer" bottle found in a crawlspace under the back of the kitchen. Horton's Pilsner Brewing Company was active mainly between 1933, after Prohibition ended, to 1941. Name changes came before and after those years. It was located on Amsterdam between 127th to 129th Streets in Manhattan.

A nearby couple who has lived in their house since 1938 said they used to go swimming in a swim hole by Voice Road in Carle Place. They also said apple trees grew across the street from the Kenny house.

Do you have a home that was built prior to 1930? Are you curious as to who lived there before you? Village historian Suzie Alvey is writing a series about Garden City homes entitled, "My History House." Please contact her at suziealvey@gmail.com or call 326-1720 for her to feature your own house. (Houses in the Western Section especially needed.)