The Lent-Riker-Smith Homestead

78-03 19th Road
c. 1729

The oldest building in New York City still used as a private residence, this Dutch Colonial Farmhouse was built circa 1729 by Abraham Lent, grandson of Abraham Riker, using local stone and roughhewn timber. The locally prominent Riker family was the namesake of nearby Rikers Island. The property contains a small cemetery containing the graves of family members, as well as that of Williams James MacNeven, an Irish patriot and pioneering physician who had stayed with the Riker family before his death. Portions of the farmhouse were damaged by fire in 1955, but the property was fully restored by the current owner Marion Duckworth Smith and her late husband, Michael Smith.The Lent-Riker-Smith Homestead is an Individual Landmark and listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

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