SCHS: Photo of the Week / 9.14.24 -- La Grange, West Islip + Book & Bottle

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

September 14th, 2024

From the SCHS Library & Archive

“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck

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La Grange Restaurant, West Islip

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Although there is no exact date for when the La Grange Inn was built, it has been speculated to have begun operations post-Revolution. Acquired by the Higbie family in the mid-eighteenth century, Samuel A. Higbie and his sons, Aaron Higbie and Nehemiah Higbie, are said to have been some of the first Higbie members to run the inn located on Montauk Highway in West Islip.

The La Grange Inn was a very popular destination for people to vacation in the summer, due to all the fishing and hunting that surrounded the area. In addition, it was easily accessible to many people since a stagecoach line was created from New York City to Patchogue with the inn being a stopover point. In later years, after the Long Island Railroad was established, the stagecoaches ran from Deer Park station to the inn.

The name La Grange comes from General Lafayette’s home in France and was named so as an ode to the general. According to a published article in the New York Times and the Sag Harbor Corrector, General Lafayette visited the Inn in 1825, and some believe this is what prompted the name “La Grange.”

Several Higbie family members were owners of the La Grange Inn before it was sold by the widow of John Robbins Higbie to a group of wealthy West Islip residents. One of the last known owners of the La Grange Inn, Uwe Paulssen, ran the inn from 1968 until 2001. More recently, the physical building itself has been moved from its original place to a more local spot on Montauk Highway. Since 2008 the West Islip Association, formally known as the La Grange Task Force, has worked to restore this building. West Islip Historical Society still runs the mansion today and it is open to the public two days a week. Click HERE for more information.

Suggested Reading: Some of Town of Islip’s Early History by George Lewis Weeks Jr. (Consolidated Press, 1955).

by Julia Letts, Library Assistant

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