Deteriorated historic home on Main Road in Aquebogue is torn down

A 19th-century Aquebogue home once described by the Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission as “one of the most spectacular homes along Main Road” was lost to the wrecking ball this weekend.

The home at 621 Main Road was torn down by it owners Saturday morning. It had been uninhabitable for at least a decade, Doug Corwin, whose family has owned the property since the late 1950s, told RiverheadLOCAL today.

Built in 1873 as a family residence by master carpenter John Elliot Aldrich, the home would have required a $2 million investment or more to repair and restore, Corwin said.

“I’m sad about it but I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “It didn’t have a roof in places. It was totally water-saturated. There was no heat. There were raccoons living in it. It was a shame. It had so much character and added something to the community,” he said.

“I guess my father should have put a new roof on it back in the ‘70s, but things were tight and it never got done,” Corwin said.

Corwin’s 32-year-old son Blake will build a home for his young family on the site, which fronts acreage owned by the family’s duck farm.

“We hope to put a nice house back in its place that will also have character and add something to the community too,” Corwin said.

Corwin said Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman Richard Wines had been in the house “a bunch of times” and had worked with the family to try to find a way to save the home.

Wines said today he’d brought prospective buyers to the home, people who were interested in converting it to some commercial use, like a B&B, but it never worked out.

“They were very cooperative, but it was not an easy property to deal with,” Wines said.

The residence was undoubtedly “a very handsome home in its day,” he said. “It probably served as an advertisement for Aldrich,” a builder.

Wines said the demolition marks the second historic house lost since the landmarks commission began working on getting Main Road designated as an historic district. The first was a smaller home across from the Meetinghouse Deli, he said.

“The landmarks commission is very worried about some others as well,” Wines said.

The effort to have the corridor listed on the state and federal registers of historic places failed in the face of landowner opposition. The landmarks commission withdrew the nomination last fall.

If it had been successful, Wines said, property owners like the Corwins would have had access to state and federal tax credits of up to 40 percent of the cost of renovations. The tax credits are aimed at providing incentives for owners to rehabilitate historic properties.

The district designation would not have prevented the demolition, Wines notes. Designation itself does not bring with it any new rules about what owners may or may not do with their properties.

But the “very valuable” tax credit incentives could well prevent properties from falling into the state of extreme disrepair that existed at the Aldrich house.

“I am sad to lose it,” Wines said.

The home had 10 or 12 rooms, complete with servants’ quarters, he said, which indicates its owner was well-to-do. It had “many gables, false windows to provide symmetry and rich combination of Italianate and Gothic design elements,” according to the Main Road Historic Resource Survey drafted by the group in 2012-2013.

Aldrich was a master carpenter whose handiwork is also on display in the elaborate shingled interior of Old Steeple Church, Wines said.

There are still more than 90 homes surviving along Main Road that were built before 1920, according to the historic resources survey.

Wines said the landmarks commission is working on suggested zoning code amendments that would provide incentives for owners to invest in historic homes, including allowing additional lot coverage allowances.

“The idea is provide rewards for preservation,” Wines said. “We haven’t finalized our wish list and would love suggestions from members of the community.”