Hallockville Museum Farm and Hallock State Park (former KeySpan Property)

The former Keyspan Property (and formerly LILCO) is now home to Hallockville Museum Farm and Hallock State Park Preserve -- along with multiple farm operations. These are important places for visitors to see and where you can learn about an extraordinary conservation effort that was undertaken in the early 2000s.

The conservation story includes many partners, including the Trust for Public Land, the KeySpan Energy Corporation (formerly LILCO and today National Grid), the Peconic Land Trust, the Town of Riverhead, New York State, and the Long Island Farm Bureau. This unique partnership enabled the preservation of important agricultural, historical and natural resources.

The History

The former KeySpan property has a long agricultural history, having been divided into farmland parcels in 1661 by the early English settlers of the area.

By the early 20th Century, the property was comprised of nine family farms. In 1903, the Boys Club of New York founded Camp Carey on the property, having purchased 30 Sound-front acres. They added another 95 Sound-front acres to the camp in 1944. The camp hosted about 2,500 boys per summer for six decades.

There was a time when these productive agricultural fields, woodlands, and sound-front would have had a very different future. In the early 1960s, Levon Properties Corporation purchased the 10 individual parcels comprising over 540 acres, and proposed an Industrial Park on the property. The proposal was unanimously approved by the Riverhead Town Board in 1963, and was expected to be completed by 1973. Forty million cubic yards of material (comprising bluffs over 100’ tall) was proposed for removal, and much was removed in the central area of the property.

However, by the early 1970s, the project was abandoned for a variety of reasons, and the property sold to LILCO, which proposed nuclear- and coal-powered plants for the site to much local opposition. The property became part of the KepSpan Corporation after LILCO dissolved most of its assets to LIPA, with the remaining parts of the corporation merging with Brooklyn Union to form the KeySpan Energy Corporation.

In 2002, the Peconic Land Trust began working with KeySpan, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), and New York State to protect the property. The Trust for Public Land purchased the property in 2003.

After purchasing the property, the Trust for Public Land sold 228 acres of wooded sound-front property to New York State for future use as parkland -- and is today Hallock State Park Preserve.

Separately, a 20-acre farm parcel was also conveyed to Hallockville Museum Farm, a 5-acre parcel was conveyed to the Long Island Antique Power Association, and 16 acres were conveyed to the Long Island Power Authority.

Putting the Ag Lands Back into Production

Of the remaining 295 acres of farmland, the Trust for Public Land sold the development rights to limit the land to agricultural use to New York State.

The Peconic Land Trust, under contract with the Trust for Public Land, and with considerable input from New York State, prepared a plan for the subdivision of the farmland acreage to create 8 farm parcels. The farm parcels were then sold -- through a lottery system -- to local working farmers at affordable prices in 2004.