Davis-Corwin House

133 East Main Street

Narrator: Ethel (Skidmore) Corwin (1876-1967), voiced by Jan McGoey

Hello, I am Ethel Corwin. I was born in this house, back in 1876, and lived here off and on for most of my ninety years. But it wasn’t a new house then. In fact, it was my great-grandfather, Chapman Davis, who built the house sometime in the 1840s. Before that, this wasn’t much of a place. Indeed, there were only four houses in all of downtown, plus the old county court house and an inn.

Architecturally, my great-grandfather was up-to date. This house featured details from the Greek Revival style then popular, such as the corner pilasters and a doorway intended to look a bit like a mini Greek temple with those columns on either side.

My father added the front porch, the nice bay window and “L” at the rear much later. The grounds ran south to the Peconic River. We always kept them beautifully landscaped with unique trees, vines shrubs and flowerbeds. Passers-by especially like seeing our boxwood parterre in the front yard. Thank goodness it is now partially restored.

My husband Ambrose Corwin was also from a local family. But as a young man, he sought his fortune in the Big City – Brooklyn – where he started out as a bicycle merchant. He quickly moved into automobiles. In fact, he was proud to have received license number nine in 1900. To qualify, he took several courses in steam engineering to learn how to operate his steam powered car. Can you believe that! By 1940, he had built his Brooklyn business into the largest Buick dealership in the world.

He was even friends with Louis Chevrolet. You’ve heard of him? He was a famous race car driver and one of the founders of the automobile company with his name on it.

You have probably heard of the great auto race of 1909 here in Riverhead? The course ran right by our house. Well, Louis Chevrolet won that race driving a Buick. He even set a new world record of an average speed of 70 miles on hour for five laps around the 23-mile course.

We mostly lived in Brooklyn, where we had a nice brownstone on Park Place, near Ambrose’s business. But we always loved coming out here to this house in Riverhead. It was so beautiful and peaceful here. Our chauffeur lived in the carriage house behind the house.

When I was growing up here, this part of Main Street was lined with beautiful residences. Now the only other one left is the house next door at 141 East Main Street that was built sometime before 1870 by Moses Benjamin, who owned a well-known drug store at the corner of Roanoke Avenue.

Fortunately, our house and the Benjamin house became property of the Town of Riverhead and are now the home of East End Arts. Do stop into their gallery if you have time. They even moved the 1821 Fresh Pond schoolhouse onto the property, you can see it by walking down the path between the two houses.