The LIMP Tour Page:

TOLL LODGES

Well, now!  That certainly doesn't add up, does it?  Neither do many of the known "facts" about these lodges!  I am indebted to Motor Parkway Panel member Umberto (Al) Velocci, whose years of research at the Vanderbilt Museum and elsewhere have uncovered many startling "new" things about the lodges.  Al has written a book which covers their rather odd beginnings, utilization, and demise or survival:

Later lodges were even more modest and at least one (Mineola) was actually a prefab shipped in from Michigan!

No originals survive, one of the second batch of three (Garden City, but moved) survives almost as built, one (Roslyn) is almost original, and one (Great Neck) is almost unrecognizable.  One other later lodge (Rononkoma) survives but was moved and lost its porte cochère.  A few others are so heavily incorporated in other, newer structures now as to be virtually unrecognizavble.

However, none of this explains the odd discrepancy from the commonly-accepted count of twelve lodges!  Why?  Primarily because there never WERE twelve!  There were intended to be, but bad economic conditions intervened.  Some were only toll booths, some became lodges later on, some were moved several times, one of which (Brentwood) kept its name if not its location, and some never even had a tollbooth, being merely grade crossings or, at best, crossings with stop signs or even (later) traffic lights!

When the Parkway closed in 1938, the lodges were offered to the tollkeepers for $500 each [false - only one went for as little as that as an accomodation to a valued employee and most ran $1,500-2,000 and as much as $3,700 (Roslyn), but that also depended on the acreage as well].

+ - The Roslyn Road Lodge still stands, intact (more to follow on this)!

* - The Garden City Lodge was moved, in March 1989, from the eastern end of private stub-street Vanderbilt Court, just north of the school on Stewart Avenue on the east side of Clinton.  The exact locations of the others will follow soon.  Vanderbilt Court (a.k.a. Huntington Road on old maps) is directly across Clinton Street from a point between Pell Terrace and Kingsbury Road.

For more on John Russell Pope, see LIMP page 12.

# - See LIMP page 5 - Spurs for more on the Bonwit Inn, at the site of the Deer Park Lodge.

@ - Bob Miller says that the Brentwood Toll Lodge is still in existence today as the Sempre Vivolo Restaurant, moved about 100' from it's original location {696 Motor Parkway, Hauppauge, 631-435-1737}.

List of LIMP Toll Lodges

(22 Oct 04 map by and © 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed image; clisk on picture for larger mage]

The three full barrier gates (N, K, and L) are shown as such.

Nassau Boulevard (Horace Harding Boulevard) Lodge - this was only opened with completion of the western extension in 1926 and there never was a lodge here, although there was supposed to have been an elegant entryway across the western terminus; there was only an access gate there, built in 1928, with the toll being collected at Rocky Hill Road at first.

Hillside Avenue (Rocky Hill Road) Lodge - This was the end of the first western extension of 1911 and a toll booth was placed there (originally manned by the wife of the Great Neck lodgekeeper, who walked over)!  Later, Willie K. built a modest cottage nearby for the tolltaker, which survives.

(We have disagreement here - some maintain that the Hillside Avenue Lodge WAS the Rocky Hill Road Lodge, others that they were separate.  Regardless, there never was a lodge or even an access at Hillside Avenue; the actual access was named for the main western approach highway to the LIMP until the final extension to Horace Harding Boulevard in 1926.)

Rocky Hill Road Lodge (today's Springfield Boulevard) - Hillside Road Lodge or separate or mythical?

Great Neck Lodge {at Lake Success} - second-generation Pope edifice, now buried in the eastern end of a mini-mansion at the original address (357 Lakeville Road).

Searingtown Lodge - although land was aquired in Cedar Heights for the purpose of building a lodge with access from I. U. Willets road, nothing ever came of this.

Roslyn Lodge - another second-generation Pope building, still occupied as a private residence in its original location, 547 Roslyn Road, although somewhat modified.  Still has the original LIMP garage moved there from {???}.

Jericho {Turn}Pike (Mineola) Lodge - originally, there was a hexagonal toll booth here, at the SW corner of the Pike and the LIMP, perched high above the RoW (the LIMP went under the Pike!).  In 1921 a lodge was built, as 191 Jericho Turnpike (and the booth became its chicken coop!), but it had to be moved southward when the Pike was widened (on its S side) in 1927.  Today, the house remains but is so heavily altered as to be unrecognizable except to LIMP cognoscenti; it is at 284 Rudolf Road and the S center face still shows its origins.

Garden City Lodge - here's a fairy tale ending!  The lodge, a second-generation Pope structure, was in constant use from its opening in 1910 through the end in 1938, then was occupied by the lodgekeeper until 1977, when it was sold to a realtor who wanted to tear it down (naturally); rescued and moved to downtown Garden City, it has been restored and is the home of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce, which maintains a small LIMP museum there.

Meadow Brook Lodge - one of the first three Pope originals of 1910, on the W side of Merrick Avenue (or was it Whaleneck Road then?), just N of Stewart Avenue (on the site today - Mid-Island Indoor Tennis at 575 Merrick Avenue, Westbury, 516-832-8010).   (29 Sep 05)

Massapequa Lodge - another of the first three Pope originals of 1910, at 301 Broadway/Hicksville Road (today's Route 107).

Bethpage Lodge - another of the first three Pope originals of 1910, just W of Round Swamp Road, where the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup race ran, S of the complex intersection of Hay Path (Farmers Avenue), Bethpage Road, and Bethpage-Sweet Hollow Road (the berm for the overpass is still there on the N side of today's firehouse, opposite Battle Row Campground).

Huntington Lodge - a toll booth in Melvillle on the W side of Broad Hollow Road (today's Route 110) until 1922, when a small lodge was put up.

Babylon Lodge - an access at Lee Avenue, just W of Bagatelle Road, this was apprently only an accomodation for the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup race and there is no further mention of it.

Deer Park Lodge - mythical?  An access with no record of any lodge, booth, manned gate, toll collector, tolls, or disposition.

Commack Road Lodge - like Brentwood, this one is confusing; Commack Road, which had an access, is between Deer Park Avenue and Harned Road (the Commack Spur), so how the Central Islip/Wheeler Road Lodge could also be called the Commack Lodge escapes me.

Smithtown-Jericho Turnpike Lodge (Commack Lodge) - this was actually a paired-function toll booth which was the last (fourth) Brentwood Lodge, emplaced at the corner of the old LIMP and the Commack Spur (today's Harned Road) in 1928 and it served both as a regular booth and to get tolls from those motorists using the Spur.

Brentwood Lodge^@ - there were several incarnations (at least four) of the peripatetic Brentwood Lodge, only the first of which had any geographical relation to Brentwood in any way (it was at the N end of Washington Avenue), and one was at the NE corner of Commack Road (1922) and another at the SE corner there (1923); one is allegedly incorporated in the Méson Olé Restaurant at nearby 7 Crooked Hill Road (Commack) and another is supposedly now the core stucture of the Sempre Vivolo Restaurant at 696 Motor Parkway (Hauppauge) {more to follow}.

Central Islip (Wheeler Avenue) Lodge - never happened; it was planned but never got built (Wheeler is today's Exit 56 on the LIE/I495).

Ronkonkoma Lodge - originally an open access, later protected by a toll booth (apprently shack was more like it) and then by a proper lodge; most of it survives nearby!

That should get you by; buy Al's book for more detail.

List of LIMP Toll Gates.

The 1929 LIMP Brochure image was on the LIMP Tour page (but now lost) and the tabulation, above, is from it.

List of LIMP Accesses.