About Us

The Ebo Hill Mansion dates back to 1843 when it was built for the Smith family, who are the founders of Smithtown. Originally, the land was owned by Obadiah Smith, the great-grandson of Smithtown founder Richard Smith. He acquired the land now known as the Town of Smithtown, as a reward for rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the Indian Chief who owned the land. It is said that the Indian Chief instructed Richard to ride a bull named Whisper in a circle and the land that was inside the circle would be his as the reward for rescuing his daughter. When Obadiah passed away, his grandson Lyman Beecher Smith inherited the property. Lyman lived in another home on Edgewood Avenue, so he gave it to his daughter Nancy when she married a doctor by the name of Josiah Bowers. When Nancy died in 1877, her husband sold the homestead to Ethelbert Marshall Smith, another descendant of Smith. During Ethelbert and his wife Emily’s residence, the house was moved from the northeast corner of Edgewood and Landing to sit further back on the property. Their son R. Lawrence added the columns and large room on the east side of the house when he moved into the home in 1908. R. Lawrence, a Princeton graduate, was a businessman who owned ships that were used to ship horses overseas to our allies during World War I. One of those ships was called Hauppauge after our neighboring hamlet. During the early 1900s, he was active in the annual Smithtown fox hunts that took place in the area and owned a private pack of hounds. Most times Ebo Hill would serve as a starting point for these hunts that were extremely popular in our town until World War II. R. Lawrence was also a philanthropist. During the polio epidemic in 1916, he helped to establish a hospital on Darling Avenue, and he donated a house on Jericho Turnpike to the Red Cross to use during World War I. R. Lawrence’s brother Marshall lived in the home after his sibling. Marshall was the first to use the name Ebo after an Indian Boy that used to play on top of the hill. Ebo ended up being the last Native American who lived in the area. At the time it was called Ebo Farm. The property was eventually sold out of the Smith family. In 1968, an Arthur D. Phillips owned the home. It was Phillips that revised the name to Ebo Hill after it was learned that the property turned out to be 140′ feet above sea level making it the highest point of elevation in Smithtown. Before it was subdivided around 1953, the property consisted of 48 acres and went from the Nissequogue River on its north side, Thatch Pond Rd. on the east side, Edgewood Ave on the south side and Landing Ave on its west side. The home also contains the first refrigerated walk-in box on Long Island. Today the 42 room, 15 bedroom, 13 bathroom home sits on 4 of its original acres and has been restored to its original detailed architecture and is furnished with many original and period correct furnishings throughout the home.