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BUILDING RESTORATION SCIENCE MUSUEM OF LONG ISLAND
Project type
BUILDING RESTORATION
Date
2019-2025
Location
Science Museum of Long Island on the Leeds Pond Preserve in Manhasset, NY.
Position
Executive Director, Science Museum of Long Island
Role:
Project management and Fundraising.
Leeds Pond Preserve is a 36-acre historic property encompassing diverse ecological landscape including forests, riparian wetlands, intertidal beaches, and a large open grass meadow rising about 60 feet above Manhasset Bay and serves as a springboard for the detailed investigation of local ecological habitats. Robert Sizer, a wealthy New York businessman, began construction of his family summer residence about 1903-1905 consisting of three historic buildings and several smaller structures that were designed in the late 19th-Century shingle style so popular on Long Island at that time. He called the summer estate Norwood.
In 1927, maritime attorney Herman Goldman purchased Norwood as a family weekend country retreat. Goldman made major changes to the entire property. The main house was extensively remodeled and redecorated. The open farmland fields were landscaped. Additional, mostly forested, acreage was purchased from neighbors making his holdings a total of 36 acres with Manhasset Bay beaches to the west and Leeds Pond marshland to the south.
In 1973, the effort brought SMLI to its present location which was once the estate of Herman Goldman, an attorney and expert in maritime law. Located on the Leeds Pond Preserve, the landmark agreement was one of the first public-private partnerships in Nassau County, marking a relationship that has continued for seven decades and many administrations.
When I started as the Executive Director of the Science Museum in 2019 the buildings had suffered years of neglect and was great disrepair. Out of concern for the viability of continued operations for the Science Museum and
Oversaw / facilitated / funded the following repairs to the main building:
• 2021- secured and oversaw grant for $10,000 from the Peter and Jeri Dejana Foundation to repair the Historic Stained and Leaded Glass Windows and Doors on the first floor.
• 2021- Secured and administrated a $10,000 Condition Report from the Preservation League of NY for a Condition Report of the Carriage House and Norwood House which addressed structural conditions and structural repairs – paving the way for
