Second Street Houses

East Second Street

Narrator: Isabelle (Edwards) Price (1858-1945), voiced by Cindy Clifford

Hello, I am Mrs. Augustus M. Price. But, we’re friends, so you can call me Isabelle, or even Belle. Many people remembered my beautiful house that stood two doors beyond the firehouse on north side of Second Street as the Dr. Northridge House, because he practiced there for many years, but before that it was mine – at least for a while. It’s a sad story.

I was born here in Riverhead – Isabelle Edwards. My father was a farmer up in Baiting Hollow. I met a dashingly handsome Brooklyn lawyer, Augustus Price. After we married – back in 1881 when I was 23 – I moved to Brooklyn, where he had a successful practice.

But I longed to be back out here in Riverhead, so in 1907 Augustus bought two old houses here on Second Street and moved them away to make a nice big lot. I wanted to be near my sister, Mary Bagshaw, who lived in a big house down the street.

This was a beautiful street then, lined with handsome houses of Riverhead’s business and professional leaders. Jetur Hand, a lawyer from the South Fork, built this house at number 17. Doctor Hallock Luce built the next one. The one beyond that at number 29 belonged to the Hochheiser family. They were Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary who ran a variety store on Main Street called Hochheiser’s. Look around, this is a beautiful neighborhood full of great old houses. That’s why the area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

My Augustus hired Riverhead’s leading architect, William Sidney Jones, to build our house. He was a most impressive Brit, with flaming red hair, as I recall. I’ve heard he learned how to draw houses in the British Navy.

As soon as our new house was finished, we moved in – just us and Martha Jones, our Black servant from Virginia in that big place. We were the toast of the town and members of every important social circle. They even made a postcard of our beautiful house. My husband opened a law office here and also got involved in politics, running in 1911 for district attorney on the Democratic ticket. He was a Tammany Democrat. Didn’t get elected but planned to run again in 1915.

Then disaster struck. In 1914 a Kings County grand jury indicted Augustus for first degree grand larceny and forgery. Seems he had signed someone else’s name on some mortgage documents and become $10,000 richer. He pled guilty and was sentenced to two-and-a-half to five years in Sing Sing.

I had to sign my beautiful house over to the bail bondsman, and when I couldn’t pay that back it was sold in a foreclosure auction in 1916. Fortunately, my sister down the street had the means to buy it back, but I never lived here again.

It was such a beautiful house!

But, like my story, the story of my house ended tragically in late 2021 when a disastrous fire broke out, destroying this place and claiming five lives.