According to the Yale Alumni Magazine, "Horse Island used to be a summer retreat; there’s still an eight-room house and evidence of a tennis court.
It’s also visited by a wide variety of migrating birds, which are actively studied by Yale researchers.
The Center will function off-grid with a kitchenette, toilet (which incinerate waste into ash), and two bunks for sleeping.
Some say that at some point a cargo of horses may have found its way to the island from a capsized or wrecked ship, but no physical or documentary traces of such an event exist.
When James and Esther Rettger purchased the island in 1946 they restored the original name as found on the geodetic survey maps.