On May 7, 2024, Roslyn Landmark Society trustees and staff visited the historic Webb Institute, an elite private college located on the Long Island Sound in Glen Cove on the site of the former Herbert Pratt Estate. President of the Webb Institute, Mark Martecchini, personally led the Roslyn Landmark Society group and friends on a fascinating tour of the school’s historic campus.
The Webb Institute was originally founded as Webb's Academy and Home for Shipbuilders in the Bronx in 1889, by shipbuilder and philanthropist William H. Webb. Webb gifted the school a substantial endowment upon his death a decade later, which continues to primarily fund the establishment to this day.
Following the death of Herbert L. Pratt, son of Standard Oil industrialist Charles Pratt, the school’s leadership purchased his Glen Cove estate to serve as the Webb Institute's new home beginning in 1947. Stevenson Taylor Hall, the college’s main building, is the former estate house built by Pratt in 1912. The stately edifice, then known as “The Braes,” was designed by architect James Brite to resemble a European neo-Jacobean palace. It was the largest of six Pratt family mansions built along the North Shore’s Gold Coast in Glen Cove during the first decades of the twentieth century.
The Webb Institute is highly selective and offers only one degree, a Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Its student body currently consists of approximately 150 undergraduate students, and all accepted into the Institute receive a full-tuition scholarship. Most graduates go on to have exceptional careers and play important roles in the evolution of ship design and construction.
The college also offers a Summer Engineering Academy for middle and high school students. Known as the SEA Program, its two-week curriculum introduces students to engineering and design through classroom instruction, laboratory learning, and hands-on activities.
If you are interested in learning more about the Webb Institute or its SEA Program, click here: https://www.webb.edu/sea/
Above photos courtesy of Howard Kroplick.
All images below courtesy of Mark Martecchini, President, Webb Institute.
"The Braes" front entry, American Country House, 1914.
Waterfront rear view of "The Braes," 1914.
Louis & Valentine Co. brochure showing "The Braes" landscaping, undated.
Hick's Nurseries of Westbury moving mature trees to the grounds and participating in the landscaping effort of "The Braes," undated.
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