Octagon Hotel

The Octagon Hotel, built as the Nassau House by Luther Jackson in 1851, was a pre-eminent political and social meeting space in Oyster Bay, New York.

A less festive meeting took place here in 1884, when the hotel was the site of the coroner’s inquest into the murder of three area women, Lydia and Annie Maybee of Wolver Hollow and Oyster Bay’s own Charlotte Aurelia Townsend.

In 1889 she installed a central heating system which supplied year-round comfort to the guests of the hotel and in 1890 she built a generating plant which provided Oyster Bay’s first electrical lighting.

The busy nature of the hotel however became unsuitable and the governor’s staff moved to the Oyster Bay Bank Building on Audrey Avenue.

Community groups have expressed their strong interest of seeing this building tied to the heritage of Theodore Roosevelt restored in a sensitive and thoughtful manner.