The John Rogers Farm

Located close to the road on a curve where Half Hollow Road turns north toward the Long Island Expressway, sits the oldest house in Dix Hills and one of the first to be protected by Huntington's historic preservation code some 40 years ago.

According to the National Register nomination form, the 257-acre John Rogers farm in Dix Hills was part of a land grant given by Queen Anne to Lord Cornbury, then the governor of Long Island.  According to records in Riverhead, John Rogers obtained the property in 1706.  It was known locally as "Five Gates" because originally there were five gates on the property that led to grazing areas.

 Today, all that remains of the farm is the house, built in 1732 and located near the street on a roughly one-acre plot at its original location at 627 Half Hollow Road.  Half Hollow Road was one of the earliest paths in the area and so was settled before much of the rest of Half Hollow Hills, and remained rural longer than most other areas of Huntington.  The John Rogers House is particularly significant because it is one of the oldest, most intact properties associated with the settlement and early growth of the Half Hollow Hills section of Huntington. 

John Rogers and his five brothers and sisters--Jonathan, Joseph, Mary, Obadiah and David--were the children of Jonathan and Rebecca Rogers.  Jonathan's great-grandfather, Thomas Rogers, was an original English colonists sailing with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620.  Located across the road from the house, on land once part of the farm and now within the gated community known as Huntington Hollow Farms, is a small graveyard where members of the Rogers family are buried.

The exact date in which John Rogers sold the property is unknown, but the 1837 Coastal Survey map identifies the land as belonging to a member of the locally prominent Carll family.  B.F. Bower is listed as the owner is 1858, and by 1873 the house had passed into the hands of the Wicks family.  The Wicks family retains ownership on both 1909 and 1917 maps.  In 1932 Barbara Blake Higgins, who married and became Barbara Dow, purchased the house.  Barbara Dow was still the owner in 1979 when the Structure Inventory Form was done for the New York State Department of Parks and Recreation.

In 1968, New York State attempted to move the Walt Whitman Birthplace House to the Old Bethpage Restoration in Nassau County.  As a result of this threat the Town of Huntington responded by broadening the reach of their historic preservation efforts. 

According to a May 28,1970 Long-Islander, "Huntington and its environs ha[d] always held the imagination of local historians, but the Walt Whitman incident served to capture the interest of the community as a whole.  As a result, the town board lost no time in adding to its town code a chapter which would specifically define those areas, buildings, or landmarks which by reason of history, architecture, or association were irrevocably connected to its heritage."

This legislation, passed in 1969, was strengthened in 1970 with the addition of nine more historic locations to the protected properties—the John Rogers farm was one of them. 

Its significance came in two forms: its role in the development and settlement of the Town of Huntington and its architectural integrity. A saltbox profile house (a saltbox is a building with a long, pitched roof that slopes down to the back; generally a wooden frame house with just one story in the back and two stories in the front), with a central chimney and a restrained Federal style entrance. 

The house exhibits the characteristics common to the period including timber framing, shingle sheathing, attic story windows and minimal decorative detail.  Demonstrating the form and plan common to settlement period architecture, the John Rogers House was particularly unique because of its size, symmetrical façade and well-crafted details.  In addition the house has had minimal exterior alterations and (at the time of the National Register nomination report), retains its original floor plan, moldings, fireplaces, door and window surrounds, corner cupboards, and some period hardware was even found. 

Thanks to the continued protection provided by the Town of Huntington's historic preservation laws, this house is one of many that will remain as a reminder of Huntington's early settlement.