In the 1700s Caleb Smith, great grandson of Richard "Bull" Smith, built his house in what is now Commack on Jericho Turnpike on land he inherited from his ancestors. The house was moved to its current location at 5 North Country Road in Smithtown in 1955 when the Town of Smithtown took ownership of the home.
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Recently, the Town of Smithtown received a New York State Technical Assistance Grant to help begin restoration of the historic home.
The $3,888 grant will go toward a buildings survey, which is the first step towards making repairs on the Caleb Smith House The survey will be conducted by Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, an architecture firm focused on the preservation of historic buildings. Upon completion of the survey, the Town of Smithtown hopes to take the next steps to make necessary repairs and restorations to the historic estate.
Smithtown’s application was one of 17 selected by an independent panel of preservation professionals, out of 14 counties across New York State. The Technical Assistance Grant came from the Preservation League of New York State and their program partners at the New York State Council on the Arts.
“We can ensure that Smithtown's future generations will be able to experience, learn and embrace the history of our community, which the Caleb Smith House represents thanks to this grant,” said Town of Smithtown Supervisor Edward R. Wehrheim in a statement.
The Town said that an assessment of the present state of the home will permit it to undertake appropriate fiscal planning to address building deterioration issues and plan appropriate interventions. The work will be broken down by its various components such as masonry, roof, structure and mechanical systems, and include recommendations of how those systems could be improved and the relative costs and priorities of those improvements.