Lent-Riker-Smith House

Recently we took a tour of the Lent-Riker-Smith house, located in East Elmhurst, Queens. Built by Abraham Riker in 1656, when New York was still New Amsterdam, the house was one of many farmhouses owned by the Rikers (Rikers island was part of their farmland). In 1729, Abraham Lent (a Riker descendant) made additions to the house, and it was one of the first structures to be given landmark status after the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission was formed in the '60s.

Marion Duckworth Smith moved into the house when she married Michael Smith in the 80s, and she's lived there ever since, making the property the oldest privately owned residence in the borough of Queens and maybe even the entire city. Marion opens her home occasionally for tours to offset maintenance costs, and we signed up a few months ago for a Saturday at the end of September.

In addition to a very old, important and historical home, the tour features Marion's collections of antiques and oddities, and — most importantly — a backyard cemetery (deserving of its own post)! This was the holy trinity of things I look for in a tour, and the LRS house and Marion did NOT disappoint. Because of its location and relative obscurity, we thought we might be the only ones on the tour, but there were ten of us total, including five actual Rikers, who drove in from New Jersey.

Marion is as much of a draw as the house itself—she's a true New York character, and her collections and stories made the tour one of the best I've ever taken. It wasn't long after we entered the house that I realized that we shared a similar taste for the eccentric and macabre. She said she wasn't precious about portions of the house (the original two rooms are period-specific), and has filled them with collections of chalkware Snow Whites (given out as prizes at Coney Island), ventriloquist dummies and funeral items. I also noticed at least one glass eye, a skull from her mother's artist studio, nuns, priests, bulldogs and a mannequin hand from B. Altman's on Fifth Avenue.

Not only did the house come with a cemetery, but the property comprises more than an acre of land which certainly is a novelty in New York. The yard is slightly overgrown but in a secret-garden, whimsical way, and is filled with garden ornaments from all over—she even has two cows from Cow Parade and multiple set pieces from the original production of Cats. She also has real cats that roam the property—I counted at least six different ones while we were there.

I can't encourage you enough to make the trek out to Queens for a tour—come for the history, stay for the stories and buy a postcard or two to help Marion stay in the house she loves until it's time for her to move into the cemetery, where her mother, brother and husband (and 131 Rikers) are waiting.