Short-term stewards: Rehabilitating a historic home on Highland Avenue

So many Long Island house renovations nowadays involve demo work and new construction. Buyers often find a home with “good bones,” gut it, and make it their own. What happens, though, when your new home is an 1890s Queen Anne Victorian and you’re committed to its thoughtful and historically appropriate rehabilitation?

For Jeffrey Moses, who lives in a Queen Anne on Highland Avenue in Northport Village, historic homeownership is an honor. Is it all smooth railings and balustrades? Not exactly. But it’s worth it.

“I’ve always been big into history and I feel like it just goes hand in hand with an old house,” Jeffrey said. “These houses were obviously here before us and they’ll still be here after we’re gone. We’re just stewards in the short term. To understand your place in that timeline, and understand the full experience, it goes hand in hand.”

Highland Avenue was developed as "Highland Park" after 1890 and was known as the “Lawyers’ Street” because many of the Edward Thompson Company attorneys lived along it. Jeffrey believes his Highland Avenue home was the first of the lawyers’ homes to be built in the area, and used as a model home as the neighborhood grew.

Today, Highland remains a sought-after village location: a tree-shaded avenue lined with 1890-1920 homes, along with some modern additions to newer lots.

(An interesting side note: Edward Thompson was a Northport oysterman, entrepreneur and law book publisher said to have recruited dozens of young lawyers and professionals into the Northport community to help make his company – the Edward Thompson Lawbook Publishing Company – a success. According to the Northport Historical Society, the company produced what would become for many years the preeminent legal publications in the nation. It’s possible the publishing company financed the Highland Park houses; Jeffrey has found pieces of wood trim with Edward Thompson’s name and “Northport, L.I.” branded into them in his own home.)

“I always knew we wanted to buy an old house in an old neighborhood.”
A data center administrator for a security company, Jeffrey was born in Vancouver, Washington and spent his early childhood in Portland, Oregon before moving to Long Island in the 1980s. His wife, Carrie, is a medical administrative assistant who grew up just two blocks away from their current Highland Avenue home, on Woodside Avenue.

The couple’s first home was a fixer upper in Elwood, where Jeffrey honed his skills as a DIY home renovator. “It was an absolute dump, a total gut job” he said. Jeffrey credits handy friends and family for helping him get through those renovations.

When it came time to move again – ten years and three kids later – Northport seemed like a logical choice. The Moseses bought their house on Highland in the summer of 2017. “I always knew we wanted to buy an old house in an old neighborhood,” said Jeffrey. “When we saw this house and all the work it needed, we said ‘It’s just another challenge.’” So they jumped in. And have been at it ever since.

Queen Anne style architecture emerged in the United States from roughly 1880 to 1910, and is a direct reflection of the Industrial Revolution. Decorative elements (like spindles, brackets, and ornamental scrollwork) were mass-produced, making them more accessible to more households.

The Moseses’ Highland Avenue Queen Anne is a two-and-a-half story, gable-roofed, shingled house with carved barge boards and exposed rafter ends. It’s not quite as ornate as neighboring Queen Annes, such as the ones on Bayview Avenue. “These weren’t built to be super duper fancy,” said Jeffrey. “They were built to be affordable housing for the upper middle class at the time.”

130 years of history
Once the purchase was complete, Jeffrey began diving into the history of his new old home. According to his research, the house only switched hands a few times in its 130-year history, and had two prominent owners: Captain William Johnson and architect Andrew Gellar.

Captain Johnson moved into the house in the beginning of the century, and was one of the first members of the Eatons Neck “Live-saving Station,” (now the Coast Guard). He shared the home with his family, including his two sons, a banker and an undertaker/embalmer who, in 1922, posted an ad in the original Northport Journal, listing offices on 53rd Street in Manhattan and another in the Highland Avenue home.

The captain eventually gave the house to his sons, who sold it to modernist architect Andrew Gellar, and his wife Shirley. According to a 2011 article in The New York Times, “Mr. Geller was best known for one-of-a-kind houses that he designed on his own time in his studio in Northport, N.Y., whose distinctive shapes earned them nicknames like the Box Kite, the Milk Carton and the Grasshopper.”

The Gellars lived in the Highland home for a few decades before their grandson, Jake Gorst, took the house over, selling it to the Moses in 2017.

One of the first things the Moseses did was have their house recognized as a historical home with the Village's Board of Architectural and Historic Review. The decision to purchase, and then rehabilitate the Highland Avenue home, involved careful consideration and understanding of the house’s history, architecture, and present-day conditions. When rehabbing a home, it’s important to preserve important historical features while also making the space practical for modern living.

The designation from village officials safeguards the architectural integrity of older homes, protecting them from any major alterations; all exterior work performed on the Highland home now and into the future, including that done by the Moseses, needs to be approved by the board.

Preserving the old, adding some new (and more old)
A rare central and offset chimney that runs from the basement to the third floor is a defining feature of the Moseses’ home. Its brick facade greets visitors upon entry through the front door, and serves as an excellent conversation starter.

In its operational days, coal would be placed into a furnace in the basement; the hot air would run up the core of the chimney, released onto each floor through vented holes in the brick. Today, it is still a focal point in the house, winding from the main floor to the hallway on the second floor, then up to the third floor.

Since moving in, the Moseses have replaced the heating system with a modern furnace. Every room has its own zone, every radiator its own control, relieving a common problem in old homes – the equal and efficient distribution of heat.

Other notable features in the house are its two staircases, and a handful of nooks and crannies that retain their original character. Original moldings, covered by bookcases by the previous owner, have returned to full view in the living room. Jeffrey also custom-built an opening for slider doors into the kitchen; he bought original stained glass Queen Anne-style front doors from a house in New Hampshire and is giving them new life with a prime location inside his home.

The upstairs, once a master bedroom with bathroom and office – railroad style – has been converted into a playroom, bathroom and bedroom. In its conception, the room was most likely used as a nursery with a bedroom for a live-in nanny/housekeeper. A hidden, narrow staircase goes directly to the kitchen, so users can travel lightly any time of day and not disturb the rest of the house. The second staircase has its modern-day merits, too. “It’s fantastic because you can just sneak down in the middle of the night and grab a snack,” said Jeffrey.

No Honus Wagners or Babe Ruths
The Moseses have uncovered some personal relics during their renovations, often in odd places. They found baseball cards from the 1950s, used to keep the mud floor from coming through holes drilled in the wood in the bathroom floor, said Jeffrey.

“No Honus Wagners or Babe Ruths, though,” he joked.

Old bottles were found in rim joists, along with wooden casters, and little medicine bottles with wooden plugs, most of which are 80-100 years old, found tucked in the basement.

A bunch of old newspapers (some used as insulation) were discovered in the living room when Jeffrey pulled down a ceiling, lowered from the original in the 1950s. It wasn’t uncommon back then to use egg cartons for insulation, perhaps as a sound dampener. In one carton, a previous owner had blown out an egg and glued it up into one of the egg crates, said Jeffrey. “And 60 to 70 years laters we found it. I thought it was pretty funny.”

In their own renovations, the Moseses framed out some spaces and added their own personal time capsules: notes handwritten by the kids are tucked in the wall, alongside a Sand City beer can. “Fifty years from now, if the next owner is redoing something, they’ll find them, too,” said Jeffrey.

The labors and loves
When the Moseses bought their Highland home, Carrie and Jeffrey “only” had three children. After the purchase, they found out they were expecting a fourth. Their oldest child is now 11, their youngest, 3.

Time management is the most challenging thing when it comes to these projects, the couple admitted. “We used to do all of our home projects together,” said Carrie. “We work well together. I don’t think I realized how much time would be shifted to four kids.” Trying to spend time with their children, work their regular jobs, and renovate the house has naturally led to moments of frustration and overwhelm.

Jeffrey said being flexible, adaptable and making use of the weekends is instrumental in his home’s slow but steady renovations. He takes advantage of bad weather to work on the inside of the house, and has been switching to outside projects now that the weather is getting nicer.

“I’ve never done any of this professionally, it’s all a hobby,” Jeffrey said, crediting his “Ph.D. in YouTube” and the “old-house community on Instagram" for guiding him in his renovations this time around. His laidback nature seems to supersede any sense of urgency or stress to get everything done immediately.

After finishing up the dining room, Jeffrey’s plan is to shift to adding some decorative shingles to the upper part of the house and painting the others – all while planning for practical renovations, like a linen closet in the upstairs hallway. “If you’re always doing something, you’re moving toward that end goal and will get there,” he said. “I think that’s going to be the most fun, seeing the final transformation when it all comes together and you’re checking those last ten things off the list.”

This multi-layered labor of love is shared; while the vision might be Jeffrey’s, Carrie is passionate about and appreciates the history. “I like that the home tells a story,” she said. “It’s sweet, and we’ll just keep adding to that story.”

For now, the Moseses’ story includes living on a highly prized street within walking distance to Main Street. Highland Avenue is one of the few residential areas with a sidewalk in the Village, and on the day of their interview, Jeffrey and Carrie spoke to the Journal from their front porch, the kids happily riding scooters up and down the block. Neighbors stopped by to visit, socialize and help with some gardening.

“It’s nice being in good company,” said Jeffrey. “We’ve met so many wonderful people. It really is a great community.”