{"nrhp_refnum":"88000600","name":"Shell House, The","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"26 Westland Dr.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Glen Cove","county":"Nassau County","state":"NY","lat":40.89791410300006,"lon":-73.63362646599995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1988-06-02","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Tudor Revival style residence on the northwest shore of East Island in Glen Cove, Nassau County, New York. It combines a small earlier core (circa 1850-1875) with a large addition built by J. P. Morgan Jr.'s family around 1910, and served as a dependency of the Morgan Matinecock Point Estate.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is a distinctive example of a Gold Coast Era estate dependency with a high level of design and craftsmanship. It is the only surviving component of the J. P. Morgan, Jr. estate and is tied to financier J. P. Morgan, Sr. Its interior is also notable for carved woodwork and seashells embedded in plaster ceilings.","narrative":"Set on the beachfront of East Island in Glen Cove, the Shell House is a Tudor Revival residence that began as a small coastal post house built around 1850-1875. Around 1910 the Morgan family added a large wood-frame wing with stucco and applied half-timbering, and the building served as a guest cottage and as the home of the captain of J. P. Morgan Sr.'s yacht Corsair. It is the only surviving part of the Matinecock Point Estate, whose 83-room mansion and other buildings were razed in the 1970s. Inside, the dining room and living room have carved woodwork, beamed ceilings and an inglenook, while the pyramidal ceilings of the older section are covered with thousands of Long Island Sound shells set in plaster, one bearing the date 1889. Remnants of the yacht pier and a retaining wall also survive. The property was listed for its link to Long Island's Gold Coast Era and its craftsmanship.","period_of_significance":"1850-1875, 1910","architect_builder":"Unknown (the mansion architect Christopher Grant LaFarge may also have designed the shell house)","architectural_style":"Tudor Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied as a private residence; the form describes it as in good condition with a high degree of integrity. The pier survives only as remnants.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:44.756604-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/88000600.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88000600/edae240b11-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88000600/edae240b11-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"DanTD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shell_House;_East_Island,_Glen_Cove.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">DanTD</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:Shell_House;_East_Island,_Glen_Cove.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75319207","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shell_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7763754"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/nassau-county/shell-house-the-88000600/"}