Box Hill Estate

Box Hill is a country estate west of St. James on Long Island, set on a rise above Stony Brook Harbor. Architect Stanford White bought a simple mid-19th century farmhouse and a tract of land after his 1884 marriage, then remodeled and enlarged the house three times, in the 1880s, 1890s and around 1900. The result is a rambling, multi-gabled house covered in pebble-dashed stucco, with neo-colonial cornices, quoins and a columned veranda. Inside, White mixed a green tile staircase, split bamboo walls, gilded Italian columns and a dining room hung with majolica plates and Delft tiles. He also laid out formal boxwood gardens and designed shingled outbuildings, including an orangerie, carriage house and octagonal water tower. The estate was listed as a record of White's personal tastes and of the social world around him. His son Lawrence Grant White later enlarged the house, and the main block remains as White left it.