{"nrhp_refnum":"87001896","name":"Roosevelt, John Ellis, Estate","other_names":["Meadowcroft"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Middle Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sayville","county":"Suffolk County","state":"NY","lat":40.738886714000074,"lon":-73.07181016735052,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-11-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Historic - Non-Aboriginal","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Meadowcroft, the John Ellis Roosevelt Estate, is an 86-acre summer estate on Middle Road in Sayville, Suffolk County, New York. It has a Colonial Revival mansion (1891-1892) attached to an older mid-nineteenth century farmhouse, plus outbuildings and an archaeological site.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the mansion is a representative Colonial Revival design by Long Island architect I. H. Green. It also illustrates the shift of southeast Long Island from farming villages to summer estates of the wealthy. It is tied to three members of the Roosevelt family and retains its setting and service and recreational buildings largely intact.","narrative":"Meadowcroft is an 86-acre summer estate on Middle Road in Sayville, on the south shore of Long Island. Its centerpiece is a two-story Colonial Revival mansion built in 1891-1892 for John Ellis Roosevelt and attached to an older mid-nineteenth century farmhouse that became its service wing. Local architect I. H. Green designed it, using Georgian motifs such as corner pilasters and a hipped roof, along with a porte-cochère and two large front porches. Five support buildings, a swimming pool, and an archaeological site complete the grounds. The estate matters as a surviving example of the informal country retreats that preceded the grander Gold Coast mansions, and as the best-preserved Roosevelt homestead on the south shore. Roosevelts summered here from 1890 to 1939, after which it stood unoccupied. Suffolk County acquired it in 1974, and it now lies within a nature preserve with its setting largely unchanged.","period_of_significance":"c. 1850-c. 1935","architect_builder":"I. H. Green","architectural_style":"Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by Suffolk County and part of the Sans Souci Nature Preserve. The estate was left unoccupied after 1939, and the main house and outbuildings are described as in disrepair or poor condition but with high integrity.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:45.680227-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/87001896.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001896/2b4439b481-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001896/2b4439b481-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Helsha","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meadow_Croft_2.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Helsha</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meadow_Croft_2.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75322220","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ellis_Roosevelt_Estate","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6231680"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/suffolk-county/roosevelt-john-ellis-estate-87001896/"}