This imposing residence, constructed around 1876, is a fine and well-preserved example of the freestanding Second Empire style frame houses that once proliferated in the rural areas of New York City but are now increasingly being altered or demolished. Built for oysterman Samuel Pell, it is significant reminder of the enormous wealth that the oyster trade brought to the maritime community of City Island in the nineteenth century. The Second Empire style is unusually well-represented on the island with thirteen surviving houses of which the Pell house is the grandest and best preserved. A five-bay-wide, three-story frame building, the Pell house is sheathed in its original clapboards and retains its historic two-over-two fenestration. It is richly embellished with heavy molded door and window surrounds, bracketed cornices, bay windows, and porches with turned posts and curved wood braces. The unusually well-preserved and elaborately-detailed mansard roof retains its original patterned polychrome slate shingles, pedimented dormers, and decorative metal flashing. Samuel Pell was a descendent of the Pell family that once owned this area of the Bronx. He and his children, who occupied this house until about 1900, were prominent members of the City Island community. In 1907, the house was sold to James Feeley, a partner in a wholesale lace curtain importing firm. In the late 1920s, the house passed to his son Edgar J. Feeley, a prominent attorney and part owner-officer of the New York Giants baseball team, who occupied the house until his death in 1972. It is currently being used as a residence.
