William Cullen Bryant's country home from 1843 until his death in 1878, now a Nassau County historic house museum; a caretaker has reported a Native American apparition at dusk and a woman in Victorian clothing at the mill.
225 Bryant Avenue, Roslyn Harbor, NY 11576
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Grounds open year-round at no charge. House interior currently closed for restoration; check friendsofcedarmere.org for status.
Access
Limited Access
Estate grounds with garden paths, pond, and mill. Uneven terrain in some areas. House interior not currently accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1843 · Country home of William Cullen Bryant, poet and editor, 1843–1878 · Cultural gathering place; visited by Thomas Cole, James Fenimore Cooper, Edwin Booth · Nassau County historic house museum since 1975 · Mill house and grounds open year-round
The earliest documented structure on the Cedarmere property was built in 1787 by Richard Kirk, a Quaker farmer. William Cullen Bryant, who had become editor of the New York Evening Post in 1829 and would remain in that role for nearly 50 years, purchased a small house at the site in 1843. Bryant named the property Cedarmere for the cedar trees encircling what he called a 'mere' — the millpond at the heart of the estate.
Bryant expanded both the land and the buildings through the 1850s and 1860s, following design principles associated with Andrew Jackson Downing, whose naturalistic landscape aesthetic was influential among wealthy Hudson Valley and Long Island estate owners of the period. The estate became a gathering place: among the figures who visited Bryant there were landscape painter Thomas Cole, novelist James Fenimore Cooper, and actor Edwin Booth.
Bryant sold the property to his daughter Julia in 1875 while retaining lifetime residence rights. He died at Cedarmere in 1878. Julia sold the estate to her nephew Harold Godwin in 1891, who made it his primary residence. In 1903 a fire damaged the upper stories of the main house considerably; Godwin rebuilt using the same footprint and floor plan. The Godwin family occupied Cedarmere until 1975, when they donated it to Nassau County for use as a historic house museum.
Exterior renovations in 2013 addressed the building fabric. The house interior is currently closed for ongoing restoration. The grounds — including the restored gardens, the cedar-bordered millpond, and the Gothic-influenced mill house — remain open year-round and are free to visit.
Sources
The haunting accounts at Cedarmere come primarily from people with regular access to the property rather than occasional visitors. The estate caretaker is the named source for the two most specific sightings: a figure described as a Native American seen walking across the grounds at dusk — appearing and then gone — and a woman in Victorian-era clothing observed at the mill house.
Long Island's North Shore has a well-documented indigenous history; the land Bryant purchased in 1843 was part of a region that had been Lenape territory for millennia. The caretaker made no claim about who the figure was or what its appearance meant; it was reported as an observation, not an interpretation. The Gothic Horror Stories field guide to North Shore ghost sites notes this account in its coverage of Cedarmere.
The Long Island Paranormal Investigators documented their investigation results at Cedarmere separately: light anomalies in photographs, multiple EVPs captured in the building, shadow figures, lights and doors operating without physical cause, unusual knocking sounds, and a report of someone being pushed on the stairs. These phenomena are consistent with LIPI investigations at other Nassau County sites.
Bryant's own biography is quiet in terms of violent or tragic history at the property — a fact that makes the accumulated paranormal reports more notable rather than less. The Victorian woman at the mill house is a particularly specific account given the mill's history as a working structure in Bryant's time.
Notable Entities
Walk the 7-acre grounds around the main house, restored pond and gardens, and Gothic-influenced mill house along the millpond. The mill house is the site of the most specific haunting account — a woman in Victorian clothing observed at dusk. The grounds are free and open year-round.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
East Islip, NY
Brookwood Hall was built in 1903 by H.K. Knapp on the former site of Stellenwerf's Lake House Hotel in East Islip. The Thorne family purchased the estate in 1929. In 1941 the mansion was converted to institutional use, and from 1942 to 1965 it operated as the Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn, housing more than 500 children. After foster care programs reduced demand, the orphanage closed. The Town of Islip assumed ownership; today the building houses Islip town offices and the Islip Art Museum, which began as the Islip Art Gallery in the early 1970s and was formally established as a museum in 1985.
St. James, NY
Deepwells Farm mansion was built circa 1845 for Joel L.G. Smith, a descendant of Richard 'Bull' Smith who founded Smithtown. The estate takes its name from two 125-foot brick wells sunk on the property. William J. Gaynor, Mayor of New York City from 1910 until his death in 1913, owned the property during his mayoralty. Suffolk County acquired the estate, and it is now a historic site managed by Suffolk County Parks; the Deepwells Farm Historical Society produces events and community programming on the grounds.
Center Moriches, NY
Samuel Terrell built the original one-room timber-frame cottage at this site in 1693. The property was expanded roughly in 1710 and again in 1790, eventually becoming a 15-room stagecoach inn and tavern. Benjamin Havens managed the inn during the Revolutionary War period and maintained connections that historians have linked to the Culper Spy Ring. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison stayed here in 1791 while visiting General William Floyd in Mastic.