Our Building

​​Our Building is one of the oldest building left in Deer Park today, and is home to Our Lady of the Rosary Council #4428 Knights of Columbus.  It is located at 759 Long Island Ave. opposite the Old Deer Park Rail Road Station.  Our Building was first owned by the Long Island Rail Road and used as a stagecoach headquarters for passengers using the railroad from Jamaica to Deer Park.  The passengers would then proceed by stagecoach to Huntington going north, Babylon going south or Patchogue going east.  The Patchogue stagecoach would also stop at the La Grange Inn in West Islip to pick up passengers. 

​The Deer Park Railroad station was opened on March 14, 1842.  Therefore, it seems that the building was built soon after.  When the other railroad stations were built to the north and south the building was then acquired from the railroad by Mr. Buesing who ran it as a hotel , calling it "THE DEER PARK HOTEL".  About 1910 the Buesing family sold the hotel to Mr. Andrew Wachter.  Mr. Wachter ran the hotel with his sister Mrs. Schwartz, that is till prohibition went into affect, which caused the hotel to close its doors for awhile. 

The Deer Park Hotel was re-opened in 1910 by Mrs. Wachters nice, Miss Josephin Schwartz.  Miss Schwartz re-branded the hotel under a new name, "THE COLONIAL INN".  Later Miss Schwartz married Leo Traeger, and they both ran the hotel until 1940 when it was sold to Russell Westcott.  During the time the Traegers ran the Inn.  Mrs. Traeger a good friend of singer Ethel Mermen (they worked in an office together in Long Island City as stenographers) would come out quite often and spend the weekend at the Inn.

​When Ralph Edwards hosted a TV show called "This is Your Life" and Ethel Mermen was the guest, the show flew Mr. & Mrs. Traeger in from Florida (there home at that time) to appear on the show. 

​In 1945 the Schwartz family then again re-acquired the Colonial Inn, and was managed by a gentleman named Fritz Panzer, Anna Schwartz's husband, until May of 1962 when Our Lady of the Rosary Council #4428 Knights of Columbus purchased the property. 

​​Our Councils History

"Our Building Through the Years"

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