Discover 20 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Oyster Bay (United States). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, Sagamore Hill, and Cold Spring Harbor. Also, be sure to include John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Oyster Bay (New York).
Table of Contents
Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park
Museum in Nassau County, New York. Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres located in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, New York.
Near the end of America's Gilded Age, the estate named Planting Fields was the home of William Robertson Coe, an insurance and railroad executive, and his wife Mary "Mai" Huttleston (née Rogers) Coe, the youngest daughter of millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers, who had been a principal of Standard Oil. It includes the 67-room Coe Hall, greenhouses, gardens, woodland paths, and outstanding plant collections. Its grounds were designed by Guy Lowell, A. R. Sargent, the Olmsted Brothers, and others. Planting Fields also features an herbarium of over 10,000 pressed specimens.
The name "Planting Fields" comes from the Matinecock Indians who cultivated the rich soil in the clearings high above Long Island Sound.[1]
Address: 1395 Planting Fields Rd, Oyster Bay
Sagamore Hill
Museum in Cove Neck, New York. Sagamore Hill was the home of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, from 1885 until his death in 1919. It is located in Cove Neck, New York, near Oyster Bay on the North Shore of Long Island, 25 miles east of Manhattan. It is now the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, which includes the Theodore Roosevelt Museum in a later building on the grounds.[2]
Address: 20 Sagamore Hill Rd, 11771-1807 Oyster Bay
Cold Spring Harbor
Hamlet on Long Island, New York. Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population was 5,070.[3]
John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden
Garden in Mill Neck, New York. The John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden is a 7-acre Japanese garden in Mill Neck, New York, providing a retreat for passive recreation and contemplation.[4]
Address: 347 Oyster Bay Rd, 11560-2303 Locust Valley
Bailey Arboretum
Arboretum in Lattingtown, New York. Bailey Arboretum is a 42-acre arboretum located in Lattingtown, New York, a small village on the North Shore of Long Island. It opened to the public on Aug. 5, 1969 after being donated to Nassau County in 1968 by the heirs of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bailey. Through an agreement with the Village of Lattingtown, admission to the arboretum was limited to 200 people at any one time.[5]
Address: 194 Bayville Rd, 11560-2017 Locust Valley
St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church
The Church of St. Dominic is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, in Oyster Bay, New York. The parish was founded in the late nineteenth century.[6]
Address: 93 Anstice St, 11771 Oyster Bay
Raynham Hall Museum
Museum in Oyster Bay, New York. Raynham Hall is in Oyster Bay, New York. Home of the Townsend family, one of the founding families of Oyster Bay, on Long Island, New York, and a member of George Washington's Culper Ring of spies, the house was renamed Raynham Hall after the Townsend seat in Norfolk, England, in 1850 by a grandson of the original owner. The house is now owned by the Town of Oyster Bay and operated as a public museum by the Friends of Raynham Hall Museum, Inc. Raynham Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a Town of Oyster Bay Landmark, and is a featured site on the Oyster Bay History Walk audio walking tour. It is located at 20 West Main Street, right in the heart of Oyster Bay. The new education center is where guests purchase tour tickets, and is located at 30 West Main Street.[7]
Address: 20 W Main St, 11771-2216 Oyster Bay
Earle-Wightman House
Museum in Nassau County. This house was originally built on South Street in Oyster Bay, New York, around 1720, as a small one-room dwelling. During the 19th century two successive Baptist ministers made their home here. The house was later moved from its location on South Street to 20 Summit Street. In 1966 the house was donated to the Town of Oyster Bay, for the use of the Oyster Bay Historical Society. The society operates the house as a museum, with two rooms interpreting the periods 1740 and 1830. Inside you can see how an 18th-century tradesman might have lived, then you can see how Rev. Earle entertained his 19th century guests in the parlor. An authentic recreation of an 18th-century garden is on the grounds behind the house. Today the house is a Town of Oyster Bay Landmark and a featured site on the Oyster Bay History Walk audio walking tour.[8]
Address: 20 Summit St, Oyster Bay
Christ Church
Church in Oyster Bay, New York. Christ Church, founded in 1705, is a historic Episcopal parish located at 61 East Main Street in Oyster Bay, New York. Several church buildings have occupied this site, including one that served as soldiers' barracks during the Revolutionary War.
In the 1870s a Carpenter Gothic style building was erected. In 1925 it was greatly enlarged and encased in stone. Those additions also included striking stained glass windows. President Theodore Roosevelt attended church here, and his wife and children were active members. Roosevelt's funeral service was held here in 1919. Today Christ Church is a featured site on the Oyster Bay History Walk audio walking tour.
In 2018 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[9]
Address: 61 E Main St, 11771-2400 Oyster Bay
Bayville
Village in New York State. Bayville is a village located in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 6,669 at the 2010 census.
The Incorporated Village of Bayville is located on the Long Island Sound facing Greenwich, Connecticut.[10]
Locust Valley Cemetery
Cemetery in Lattingtown, New York. Locust Valley Cemetery is a non-denominational cemetery located in Lattingtown, New York, in Nassau County. The cemetery was founded in the 19th Century and designed by John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. renowned architects of Central Park. They are the sons of the famed landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. The two brothers were among the founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Locust Valley Cemetery is situated on over 32 lushly landscape acres with a park-like setting. The cemetery is owned by its plot holders and managed by an association.[11]
Address: 115 Ryefield Rd, 11560-1931 Locust Valley
First Presbyterian Church of Oyster Bay
Church building in Oyster Bay, New York. First Presbyterian Church built in 1873 is an historic Carpenter Gothic-style Presbyterian Church building located at 60 East Main Street in Oyster Bay, in the U.S. state of New York. Its architect was J. Cleaveland Cady, who was just beginning his career and would go on to design the original Metropolitan Opera House, the American Museum of Natural History, buildings at Yale University, Trinity College, and 23 other churches, but he never designed any other churches in the Carpenter Gothic style.
The congregation which dates back to 1842, is noted for its association with Theodore Roosevelt Sr. his wife, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, and their children including their son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. the future President of the United States. The funeral of Theodore Roosevelt Sr. was held in this building in 1878.
On December 12, 1976, the church building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.[12]
Address: 60 E Main St, 11771-2411 Oyster Bay
Underhill Burying Ground
Cemetery in Lattingtown, New York. The Underhill Burying Ground is a cemetery located within the Village of Lattingtown, in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York. The cemetery has been in continuous operation since the burial of Captain John Underhill in 1672. The Underhill Burying Ground is governed by the Underhill Burying Ground, Inc. a non-profit organization, incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.[13]
Council Rock
Council Rock is located on Lake Avenue, a hundred yards south of West Main Street in Oyster Bay, New York. It was a Matinecock meeting ground and the location of a sacred council fire. In 1672, George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, gave a sermon there during his visit to America.[14]
WaterFront Center
Sailing school in Oyster Bay, New York. The WaterFront Center is non-profit organization located in Oyster Bay, New York. The organization provides access to the waters of Oyster Bay Harbor and Long Island Sound[15]
Address: 1 W End Ave, 11771-1202 Oyster Bay
Matinecock Friends Meetinghouse
Building in Locust Valley. Matinecock Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house located on the northwest corner of Piping Rock and Duck Pond Roads in Locust Valley, Nassau County, New York. It was built in 1725 and is a two-story, rectangular building topped by a steeply pitched gable roof. It is two bays wide and four bays long, sheathed in shingles.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.[16]
Joseph Lloyd House
Museum in Lloyd Harbor, New York. The Joseph Lloyd Manor house is a historical site and Literary Landmark located in Lloyd Harbor, Suffolk County New York. The house was built between 1766 and 1767 on the Manor of Queens Village, a 3,000-acre provisioning plantation established in the late 17th century on the ancestral lands of the Matinecock Nation. The entire estate encompassed all of what is known today as Lloyd Neck. The house was built for Joseph Lloyd and remained in the Lloyd family for a century before being sold in 1876. It is most significant today for being where Jupiter Hammon, the first published Black American poet, was enslaved by the Lloyd family and authored his best-known works. Today, Joseph Lloyd Manor is owned by Preservation Long Island and is used to educate the public about Long Island's colonial and early national history, the region's history of enslavement, and the legacy of Jupiter Hammon.[17]
20th Century Cycles
Museum, Specialty museum, Bike shop
Address: 101 Audrey Ave, 11771 Oyster Bay
Oyster Bay Railroad Museum
Rail station. Oyster Bay is the terminus on the Oyster Bay Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. The station is located off Shore Avenue between Maxwell and Larabee Avenues. It is a sheltered concrete elevated platform that stands in the shadows of the original station, which was accessible from the ends of Maxwell, Audrey, and Hamilton Avenues. Both stations exist along the south side of Roosevelt Park.
The original Oyster Bay station opened on June 24, 1889 and remodeled in 1902. At one point there were plans to extend the line east towards the Port Jefferson Branch. There was also a large pier built to facilitate the loading of passenger cars onto a short-lived ferry to Wilson's Point in South Norwalk, Connecticut that is now owned by the Flowers Oyster Company. The former Oyster Bay Station and the Oyster Bay Long Island Rail Road Turntable were both listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places on July 6, 2005. Efforts are under way to transform the former station into a railroad museum.
No bus access is available for the station, however local taxicabs do stop.[18]
Address: Oyster Bay, Shore & Maxwell Avenues, Oyster Bay, NY
Christeen
Gaff rig. Christeen is the oldest oyster sloop in the United States and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992.
She was built in 1883 in Glenwood Landing, New York as a gaff-rigged sloop. She had several homes including Essex, Connecticut, but in 1992 she arrived back in the hamlet of Oyster Bay, New York at the Waterfront Center. Funds were raised and over the next seven years, she was restored and relaunched. She currently serves as a working museum ship, offering educational tours of Oyster Bay and Cold Spring harbor.[19]