Farm, Funeral Home and a Side of Fries: The McMansion in New Hyde Park That’s a McDonald’s
Long Island is known for its McMansions; those planned developments with enormous homes that come in just one of a handful of styles and are packed together side-by-side. This is a McMansion of another sort – a real Colonial-era mansion in New Hyde Park that was transformed in the 1980s into the most beautiful McDonald’s you’ve ever laid eyes on.
The home was originally built as a farmhouse by Joseph Denton in 1795, back when Nassau County was all farmland and colonialism. Denton – who was a descendent of the founders of Hempstead – could never have known that his Georgian-style home would not only survive well into the 21st Century but it would house one of the most successful brands in fast-food ever in the United States. (Nor would he even know what fast-food meant since we bet nothing moved very fast in 1795, especially the food service.)
His house did survive the centuries but alas, by the mid-1980s, the home fell into disrepair. It had changed hands a number of times over the years even serving as a funeral home at one point believe it or not. In the 1950s it was also a restaurant named Luigi’s and the owners lived upstairs.
Then came Ronald McDonald in 1986 with his big feet and a big idea to raze the dilapidated place and put up his Golden Arches. Locals got up in arms and worked to save the place and McDonald’s agreed to upcycle the home into a restaurant with one caveat: they wanted a drive-thru. They got it and the rest is history.
It’s now known as the Denton House McDonald’s and is an official historic landmark. It’s so beautiful that people also go there to take their wedding photos.
Where: 2045 Jericho Turnpike, New Hyde Park.
📷 DanTD; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
