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By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
STEVE FULGONI, an engineer and jazz aficionado from Dix Hills, has long been captivated by the life and music of the jazz artist and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. Five years ago, Mr. Fulgoni learned from a biography that Coltrane once also lived in Dix Hills, but he couldn’t determine exactly where.
While searching the Internet, Mr. Fulgoni found an article on a Jazz Web site written by Art Rice, a graphic designer from Coram. In 1965, while an art student, Mr. Rice, now 57, recalled delivering prescriptions from a Deer Park pharmacy to the Coltrane home on Candlewood Path. Mr. Fulgoni sent an e-mail message to Mr. Rice and asked him where the house was. Mr. Rice remembered the street, and described the house and the property’s distinctive wrought-iron gates.
“I drove by and the house was there and it looked fine,” Mr. Fulgoni recalled.
Coltrane lived in the 2,500-square-loot home for three years, from 1964 until his death at age 40 in 1967. His wife Alice, and their children continued to live in the house until 1973. It was in a dormered room upstairs that Coltrane composed his most famous album, “A Love Supreme.”
When Mr. Fulgoni was elected historian of the Half Hollow Hills Historical Society six months ago, he figured he would add the Coltrane house to their register. Just before New Year’s Eve, Mr. Fulgoni went to the tax assessor’s office to confirm what Mr. Rice had told him and matched the house on a street map.
Tax records revealed that it was purchased in 2002 by a developer, Ash Agrawal, of Ashley Building Corporation in Port Jefferson Station.
“At 3.24 acres, based on my experience in Dix Hills, that often means things will be done with the property that meant subdivision,” Mr. Fulgoni said. “Property values have gone way up. Builders often try and find an old home, purchase and subdivide.” Dix Hills has one-acre zoning.
Once again, Mr. Fulgoni drove past. He noticed a “Land for Sale” sign on the property. From the real estate broker Richard Rosenthal, he learned the property had been subdivided into two lots and that the builder planned to demolish the house because it was too close to the newly formed property line.
Mr. Fulgoni decided to try to save the Coltrane home. Dr. Lewis Porter, a jazz historian ay Rutgers University in Newark and the author of “John Coltrane His Life and Music” (University of Michigan Press, 1998) said that Coltrane’s influence was inescapable and that the time he spent in Dix Hills was a key period “when he felt capable of expressing his spiritual and religious ideas overtly in his music.”
This isn’t just some anonymous historic house.” Dr. Porter said. “He was the last great, great name in jazz. There has been nobody since of that stature.”
Since its release in 1965, “A Love Supreme” has never been out of print and has sold more than a million copies. Coltrane recorded 40 albums as a leader and l5 to 17 as a sideman, notably with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. With reissues since his death, there are more than 100 Coltrane compact discs.
“That is the house that is associated with his later works; those are the works which are the spiritual ones,” Dr. Porter said. “Most jazz musicians have fans who are generally fans of jazz. Coltrane has this whole appeal that goes beyond that.”
Mr. Fulgoni brought the situation to the attention of Robert Hughes, the Huntington town historian. On Jan. 26, the historic preservation commission met with the owner and Mr. Fulgoni.
Asked about the importance of Coltrane, Mr. Agrawal claimed, according to Mr. Hughes, “that It was not so Important and not worthy of preservation because it’s not in good condition.” Mr. Rosenthal said that when he got the listing he was told “it was condemned.” The roof needs replacing. Because of water damage, some of the sheetrock is failing down and the brick needs repointing.
Contacted by a reporter, Mr. Agrawal refused to answer questions. “I really don’t have anything to say,” Mr. Agrawal said. Tax records indicate he paid $500,000 for the 3.24 acres. The land is listed for $1,049,000, or $499,000 for the front 1.04 acres, where the house sits, and $550,000 for the rear 2.2-acre parcel, Mr. Rosenthal said.
Mr. Hughes said that the commission was trying to set up a meeting with Mr. Agrawal to see the site and explore further before deciding to proceed with landmark status.
“It’s something that Is under consideration,” Mr. Hughes said. “It has to meet the criteria under the code. In this case the criteria would be the association with John Coltrane. A building is worthy of preservation if it is associated with a famous person or famous event.”
Mr. Hughes said that the commission was aware Coltrane once lived in Dix Hills but that it didn’t have the exact address until Mr. Fulgoni brought it to their attention.
Part of the conditions of Mr. Agrawal’s subdivision from the planning board was that the house be demolished Mr. Hughes said. “At the time nobody realized the significance of the house,” he added.
There are 100 individually designated historic properties in Huntington town, including the homes of Walt Whitman and the 1939 World’s Fair architect Wallace K. Harrison, whose home was landmarked last year, and an additional 450 in 6 landmarked historic districts. Additionally, there is an inventory of 1,200 historic structures, Mr. Hughes said.
“Because of all the development activity now, it’s when something is threatened because of subdivision or a demolition permit application, it moves it to the top of the list,” Mr. Hughes said.
Susan Berland, a town councilwoman, said that historic homes were priceless and it was lucky that Mr. Fulgoni found the house before it was torn down.
“I would oppose any demolition of the house at this time,” Ms. Berland said. “Although the owner may be opposed to historic designation, he may be willing to work with us to find a private buyer to keep the house there.”
Mr. Fulgoni is hoping that a benefactor steps forward to buy the entire property, restore the home, obtain nonprofit status and open it to the public like the Louis Armstrong house in Queens.
“You wouldn’t want to make it into a Dix Hills house, meaning rip out every bathroom,” Mr. Fulgoni said. “You’d want to restore it to the way it was. The bathrooms that are in there are the way he left it. The kitchen is the way he left it. It’s almost as if it were meant to be. ” Even the red and gold shag carpeting in the den, Mr. Fulgoni said, appears to date back to the Coltrane era.
Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong house, said fans should not be denied the chance to make a pilgrimage to Coltrane’s home. Among musicians, Mr. Cogswell said, Coltrane “would be at the top of the pyramid: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane. Those are all giants.”
“There are relatively few jazz landmarks that are preserved,” Mr. Cogswell said. Coltrane’s previous~ home St. Albans is on the Queens jazz trail. Philadelphia, where he lived in the 1950’s, the house owned by his cousin Mary Alexander, who associated with his song “Cousin Mary,” is on the National Historic Register.
Mr. Cogswell said the years Coltrane spent in the Dix Hills home “were some of the most exciting years of his career.” His music reached ears more attuned to hip-hop or rock or classical music and influenced bands like Santana and the Grateful Dead, he said.
Ashley Kahn, author of “A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album said that Dix Hills was a haven for Coltrane, a place where he might Just have put his horn down and enjoyed the three sons who were born there. But amid the rural splendor of this mini-estate, Coltrane ~found inspiration to compose deeply spiritual music.
Coltrane also built a recording studio in the basement, stocked with a piano, harp and a range of African percussion instruments.
“The fact that he wrote that masterpiece there in that main house, you could compare it to the dorming house in which Margaret Mitchell wrote ‘Gone with the Wind’ in Atlanta,” Mr. Kahn said. “It’s considered somewhat of a national landmark or if you go to Paris and they have Voltaire’s desk where he wrote his incredible work. I think about this house and I think about ‘A Love Supreme’ and John Coltrane. It really is his musical self-portrait, an autobiography in album form and it was done right there.”
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