Albany Avenue Historic District

Ten houses spread along Albany Avenue on the edge of Nassau, New York, make up this district. They sit well back from the road on generous lawns, giving the area a park-like feel that contrasts with the denser village center. Nearly all are Federal style, dating from about 1800 to 1835, along with a Greek Revival temple-form house and two homes built in the early 1900s. The land came from two prosperous farms, including one that passed from the innkeeper Phillip Cook to Peter C. Van Valkenburgh in 1815, and the owners had little reason to subdivide it. Nassau grew because the Albany to Boston stage route passed through around 1800. The former Nassau Academy of 1835 is now two residences, one moved in the 1920s. Exteriors remain largely intact, and the district preserves the look of a prosperous inland village of the early nineteenth century.