The School That Parents Built

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In 1957 several families realized a need for a local school that would serve the surrounding North Shore villages from Head of the Harbor to Port Jefferson. The first 38 founding families of the school raised almost $20,000 toward the purchase of the Tulip Knoll estate originally built in 1910 as a summer home for William A. Minott, heir to the Goodyear Rubber Manufacturing Company of New Jersey, and his wife Clara Brewer Minott, by local architect Lawrence S. Butler.

For financial reasons, Mr. Minott was forced to sell the home to James McLean and his wife Sarah Throckmorton in 1916. James McLean, vice president of Phelps Dodge and Company, was a well-known financier, an avid art collector, and great lover of horses. The McLeans eventually sold the home, then known as “Tulip Knoll”, to their daughter Alice Throckmorton McLean Tinker who continued to live on the estate with her two sons, before eventually selling it to become Harbor Country Day School.

The residence was converted into classrooms for the first 38 students who entered Harbor Country Day School under Headmaster Spencer P. Kennard, Jr. in 1958. As the years progressed the school underwent major changes and expanded to accommodate the needs of its growing student body. In 1961 the board of trustees raised $5,000 to be used as a down payment on four acres of property on North Country Road. This property, eventually renamed “Miller Field” would become the grass-covered athletic fields in use today.

Today, some 60 years later, the halls of Tulip Knoll are filled with passionate and engaged students, a talented faculty, an exceptional academic program, a philosophy dedicated to developing every aspect of a child's character and potential while instilling an exemplary work ethic -- the building blocks upon which Harbor Country Day School was founded so many years ago. This foundation continues to underscore everything the school does today and everything it plans for its future.

Now enrolling for fall classes, please visit www.hcdsny.org for more information or contact Harbor’s Director of Admission & Parent Relations, Christine McBrien at cmcbrien@hcdsny.org.

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