Land Surveyor in North Woodmere, Nassau County, NY

Prior to its development in the late 1950s, the land stretching from Lawrence to South Valley Stream was owned by attorney Franklin B. Lord (President of the Long Island Water Company in the late nineteenth century). The Water Company pumping station also occupied some of this property and is there to this day. His estate, known as “The Lord’s Woods”  went through Cedarhurst and Lawrence, all the way to Far Rockaway. At Mill Road, the woods thinned out and there was farmland. The last vestige of these beautiful woods remains today at the Long Island Water Property.

In 1956, as the housing boom transformed Nassau County’s landscape, this last remaining area of natural woodland in southwest Nassau was the subject of a dispute between conservation groups, residents, and developers. Woodmere Woods, over 100 acres of woodland bordered by Peninsula Boulevard and Mill Road, was originally part of the Long Island Water Corporation’s property.  The Peninsula Shopping Center is now situated where Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts had camping weekends.

By the late 1950s, technology had developed to dig deeper wells, and despite conservationists protesting, the Long Island Water Corp. opted to sell off a vast swath of their property for development. By the end of 1958, The woods were completely gone, and the newly developed area christened “North Woodmere Knolls.”