Belle Terre, New York

Episode 174 / 4 June 2020 / 169 min / full

Open & Not So Shut

"We're going to Beltare, New York... this is out on Long Island... in Suffolk County here, New York, zip code 11777." about 0:09:18

The case: Murder of Seymour and Arlene Tankleff (September 7, 1988). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2020

Population

679

Median age

50.6 years old

Median household income

$110,250

Two-bedroom rent

$3,078

Cost of living

197.1

Religious

73%

Property crime

▼ 75% under the national average

Property crime

only about 25%

Violent crime

▼ under 10% of the national average, about 8%

Suffolk County homicide prosecutions involving confessions or oral admissions

▲ 94%

History, in brief

• Belle Terre was first referred to as Mount Misery Point, and the land was known as Mount Misery from the 17th century. about 0:11:39
• Throughout the 1700s and 1800s most of the area was owned by one family, the Strong family, who had what they called Oakwood Estate in the Mount Misery Neck section. about 0:12:04
• The first known dwelling in the area was a shack built by an African American man known only as Uncle Mott. about 0:12:17
• The artist William Moore Davis painted the shack after it had become dilapidated, about a hundred years later. about 0:12:50
• In 1902 the Port Jefferson Company bought the Oakwood estate to create an exclusive waterfront development of 50 houses. about 0:14:09
• A developer named Dean Alvard was chosen as president and the company began building the Belle Terre Club as a private members' club at the centre of the community. about 0:14:28
• Alvard was friends with the Whitneys, the Vanderbilts, the Asters and the Belmonts, who all became charter members of the club. about 0:14:59
• The club overlooked Port Jefferson Harbour, accommodated a hundred people, had a fireplace in every room, an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts and a private bathing beach. about 0:15:30
• In 1934 the club was destroyed by fire; there had been a lapse in the insurance policy, so nothing was paid out and it was never rebuilt. about 0:17:08
• The pergolas by the water were later taken down because the upkeep was too much. about 0:17:16
• In the twenties and thirties a gravel company tried to buy the land and dredge it for an industrial area, but the wealthy residents campaigned against it and the company was ordered to cease operations in 1931. about 0:18:03
• The cove there is now known as Pirates Cove. about 0:19:00
• Belle Terre is known for a law used to try to evict students from the State University of New York at Stony Brook: an old 1700s law barring people unrelated by adoption, blood or marriage from living in the same house, which the court refused to apply. about 0:19:39
• A Bulgarian-born countess, Nadia de Navarro Farber, lived in a giant pink mansion in Belle Terre that was used as Meryl Streep's house in the film She Devil. about 0:20:34
• The countess's house was 30 bedrooms and 19,000 square feet and was eventually torn down after she died because nobody wanted it. about 0:21:36

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