MiddleSea's History 500 Centre Island Road
Courtesy of:
“Yeadon”/”Hearthstone”/”Middlesea” (Centre Island, New York)
USA / New York / Centre Island / Centre Island, New York
A 25 acre estate at Moses Point. In 2018 the separate lots of what was once the George Bullock estate were purchased and reconstituted into a single estate. George Bullock, Chairman of the Board of the Erie Railways Company, and his family were some of the first Gold Coast residents of Centre Island. The Bullocks first home on the island, The Folly, was constructed next to the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club in the 1890’s.
After selling The Folly in 1913 the Bullocks purchased 26 acres from Jacob Smith and had Yeadon constructed by Elliot C. Brown Co. in 1914 to a design by Robert W. Gibson (Seawanhaka Yacht Club). The estate incorporated a main house, stables, farm buildings, a boat house and docks.
Landscaping by Warren H. Manning included a formal water garden centered around a cascade running down a steep hill into a reflecting pool to the North of the main house. Yeadon was named after the town of the same name in Leeds, West Yorkshire England where Benjamin Bullock, the first of the family to arrive in America, was born.
The home was sold by Mrs. Bullock after the death of her husband in 1932. Mr and Mrs. Bullock are buried at the Locust Valley Cemetery about 75 feet directly North of the Church.
Robert Barr Deans, a retired partner in C.D. Halsey & Co. stock brokers, purchased Yeadon from Mrs. Bullock. Mr. Deans’ second wife was a daughter of F.G. Bourne and an heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune.
The estate was later sold to Carleton Humphrets Palmer {industrialist, capitalist} who renamed the estate “Hearthstone”. He served as chairman of the board of E.R. Squibb & Sons and director of Lentheric and the Long Island Railroad. Carleton Palmer and his brother-in-law Thomas Weicker reshaped Squibb into the modern day pharmaceuticals giant it became. The Palmer School of Library & Information Science at Long Island University, Post was endowed by the family in honor of Carleton Palmer.
The property was subdivided in the 1950’s with the main house, water gardens, boat house and beach cottage on a 13 acre lot which included Moses Point; the greenhouse, rose gardens and related structures on two three acre parcels to the North of the main house (still extant but now wooded and derelict); and the garages North East of the main gate on a separate 5 acre lot (also still extant but significantly altered and converted into a private home).
In 1996 the main house was purchased and razed and a new Jacobean style home designed by Oliver Cope was built on the site incorporating portions of the older building. House renamed “Middlesea” by current owners.
