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Brookhaven, New York real estate, also known as the Town of Brookhaven, is ideally located east of New York City on Long Island in the center of Suffolk County and contains eight villages and 51 hamlets. A constant flow of new residents continues to move into Brookhaven, New York existing homes or resale homes. Searching Brookhaven, New York MLS resale listings is almost effortless on NewHomesRealEstate.net because we have volumes of comprehensive listings of Brookhaven, New York existing homes for sale, from mansions to investment properties to condominiums to townhouses.

The Buyer’s Agents of NewHomesRealEstate.net are licensed New York state real estate agents with access to extensive information on the up-to-date inventory of Brookhaven-area existing homes and Brookhaven-area resale homes on the market. With a click of your computer mouse, you can search thousands of resale homes in Brookhaven, New York. Customize your search by price and property type to quickly find the perfect resale home that meets your home-buying needs for you and your family.

More than 80 percent of all homebuyers start searching for their new home on the Internet and our Brookhaven-area MLS listings are the perfect place to start. View our library of resale listings and see for yourself. Each listing contains detailed information including color photos, property type, square footage, distance from major metropolitan cities, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garage size and MLS number. With this amount of information at your fingertips, it is easy to see why NewHomesRealEstate.net is one of the premier Internet resources for Brookhaven-area resale homes.

We invite you to review our MLS listings and once you have found a resale home you are interested in, call us toll-free (1-888-441-1385) or complete our very short information request form online. Either way you will be contacted shortly by a Buyer’s Agent and you will begin your exciting home search with a company that has helped thousands of home buyers find their Brookhaven, New York dream home.

Town of Brookhaven, New York Area Demographics

Brookhaven, New York real estate is a very large “town” with multiple identities. The 2000 U.S. census listed the Town of Brookhaven’s population at 448,248. The Town of Brookhaven encompasses eight villages and 51 hamlets.

In the state of New York, counties are subdivided into cities and towns. There are no cities in Suffolk County. Everyone who does not live in a city or on an Indian reservation lives in a town. Villages and hamlets exist within towns. A village is an incorporated area which is usually, but not always, within a single town. A village is a clearly defined municipality that provides the services closest to the residents, such as garbage collection, street and highway maintenance, street lighting and building codes. Some villages provide their own police and other optional services. A hamlet is a populated area within a town that is not part of a village. The term “hamlet” is not defined under New York law (unlike cities, towns and villages), but is often used in the state’s statutes to refer to well-known populated sections of towns that are not incorporated as villages.

Suffolk County has no cities, but is divided into 10 “towns” (also known as civil townships), some large and some small. In addition to the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County (population: 1,474,927) is divided into nine other towns: the Town of Islip (population: 322,612), which includes four villages and 23 hamlets; the Town of Babylon (population: 211,792), which includes three villages and 12 hamlets; the Town of Huntington (population: 195,289), which includes four villages and 14 hamlets; the Town of Smithtown (population: 115,715), which includes three villages and eight hamlets; the Town of Southampton (population: 54,712), which includes six villages and 18 hamlets; the Town of Riverhead (population: 27,680), which includes seven hamlets; the Town of Southold (population: 20,599), which includes one village and nine hamlets; the Town of East Hampton (population: 19,719), which includes two villages and four hamlets; and the Town of Shelter Island (population: 2,228), which includes one village and one hamlet. Fire Island National Seashore is also part of Suffolk County and home to about 20 tiny communities, including two villages and two hamlets, but Fire Island’s official population was 310 at the 2000 census. A few of the county’s villages and hamlets straddle town borders, placing them in more than one town.

The Town of Riverhead (population: 27,680), located east of Brookhaven and more than 60 miles east of the nearest New York City borough of Queens, is the county seat of Suffolk County, although many county offices are in Hauppauge on the west side of the county, where most of the population lives. There are also county offices in Smithtown and Yaphank.

Brookhaven is the largest town of 10 towns in Suffolk County and sits near the middle of the county. The town also includes a hamlet named Brookhaven. If the Town of Brookhaven was a city, it would be the 40th-largest city in the U.S., larger than Kansas City, Missouri, Miami, Florida and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Villages in the Town of Brookhaven include:

Hamlets in the Town of Brookhaven include:

Temperatures at Brookhaven vary from an average high of 83 degrees and average low of 64 in July to an average high of 39 and low of 22 in January, with extremes of 102 in 1975 and -13 in 1984. Annual precipitation averages 50.3 inches.

Town of Brookhaven, New York History and Culture

The Town of Brookhaven, New York real estate was shaped by glaciers thousands of years ago during the final Ice Age. Eventually, the glaciers melted and receded to the north, resulting in the difference between the north shore beaches and the south shores. The North Shore beaches are rocky from the remaining glacial debris, while the South Shores are crisp, clear sand. Running along the center of the island almost like a spine is the moraine left by the glaciers.

Extending back 10,000 years and up to the 17th century, Long Island was inhabited by numerous small groups of Algonquin Indians, who lived throughout the Middle Atlantic region and what is now New England. Historians estimate the native population to have been no more than 6,000. The Algonquins fished and harvested shellfish at the shore and hunted the inland wilderness. From clam shells and whelk they chiseled wampum, strings or belts of beads. A Dutchman, Adrian Block, was the first explorer to touch land at Montauk Point in 1614, where he encountered the Native Americans. The first white resident was Lion Gardiner, who settled in 1639 on the Island between the north and south forks. Gardiner’s Island still bears his family name.

English colonists crossed Long Island Sound from Connecticut and Massachusetts colonies, founding Southold and Southampton on Long Island in 1640. Other colonies soon followed: East Hampton (1648), Shelter Island (1652) and Setauket, in Brookhaven (1655). Dutch settlers moved eastward from Manhattan Island. By the mid-1600s the Dutch had ceded control of eastern Long Island to the English.

The first purchase of land in the Brookhaven area was made by a group from Connecticut and Massachusetts from the Setalcott Indians in 1655. Two years later, a large tract at Mastic was purchased from the Indians and in 1664 a vast tract along Great South Bay was added, as well as land on Long Island’s north shore from Old Man’s Harbor to Wading River. An essentially- New England community was soon settled, and the town eventually became Setauket. The shipbuilding industry began in the area around 1662. The area was originally considered part of Connecticut until Richard Nicolls, the first territorial governor of New York, persuaded area leaders in 1664 to look to New York for protection and support. The first church was built in 1671. In 1675, the purchase of all the land from Stoney Brook to Wading River was confirmed and gradually additional lands were acquired. Caroline Church in Setauket, organized in 1723, erected a new sanctuary in 1729 that is still in use today. Richard Woodhull (1620-1690), the founder of a Long Island family and a native of England who had originally settled in Massachusetts, negotiated many of the land purchases from the Indians. His great-grandson, Gen. Nathaniel Woodhull, was the Long Island hero of the American Revolutionary War. Suffolk County was occupied by the British for the seven years of the Revolutionary War, from 1776-83.

After the Revolution, Brookhaven resumed a quiet tenor dedicated to farming, shipbuilding and whaling.

Patchogue became the most thriving place in the township by the dawn of the 19th century and by 1900 had become a summer playground replete with handsome stores, large hotels, and a general air of wealth and refinement that earned the name “the Queen City of the South Shore.” Oyster harvesting in the area has thrived for centuries.

The land on which the village of Bellport and the hamlet of Brookhaven lie was purchased from the Unkechogue Indians in 1664. Brookhaven Hamlet was first settled in 1681 and Bellport Village was established in the early 1800s. Part of Brookhaven Hamlet is a designated “historic district” within the Town of Brookhaven. In 1980, the National Register of Historic Places added more than 80 houses in Bellport Village. In 2001, Bellport Village established a Historic Preservation Commission, which has since designated four historic districts in the village. The Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society Museum Complex is situated in the center of these districts.

From the first years of colonization, the heavily wooded forests provided wood which Long Islanders cut and shipped as cordwood and as board footage for local ship and home builders. As the land was cleared, the rich acreage was farmed. Fishing and shipbuilding were other early industries. Until the 1850s, whaling was an important source of income. The letter “D” on the official seal of the Town of Brookhaven is a cattle branding letter assigned to Brookhaven in the mid-1600s. Three whaling spears cross over the “D.”

Recognizing an eastward shift in population more than 100 years ago, Suffolk County converted unused meadows in to productive farms, provided timber for construction and harvested the ocean for whale meat and blubber, when the English colony needed these inputs and in the decades after independence. However it was equally nimble to respond to housing needs between the two World Wars and was quick to exploit rising incomes beginning in the 1950s to offer quality infrastructure for family life and recreation.

Farming remains important to eastern Long Island’s commerce, although strawberries, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkins and sod acreages are giving way to horse farms and vineyards. Suffolk County’s quaint historic villages, rocky north shore beaches and calm waters, the white sand and breakers off Fire Island and the dependable winds and safe harbors for sailing make tourism a major Suffolk County industry. After World War I, Brookhaven National Laboratory, a research institution administered by Associated Universities, Inc. and funded by the U.S. federal government, was established on the site of Camp Upton in Yaphank. Its scientists develop peaceful uses of atomic energy. In the 1930s Suffolk County became the site of large-scale suppliers to the U.S. defense and aerospace industries. For example, Grumman Corp. played an important role in developing high-technology jet planes, such as the Navy F-14 fighter, as well as the lunar module (LEM) which first landed men on the moon in 1969. High technology centers make Suffolk County sixth in the nation in the production of radio and television communications equipment and aircraft manufacture.

Since World War II, Long Island has epitomized the phenomenon of growing suburbia. In 1955, mass-produced housing developments, along with new major institutions of learning, contributed to Suffolk County’s population explosion. The foremost educational institution is the State University of New York at Stony Brook (a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven) which opened on a 1,000-acre campus in 1962. Its Health Science Center and 18-story University Hospital became Long Island’s tallest buildings in 1976.

Since 2000, housing prices on Long Island have been the highest in the country. For some, Suffolk County’s bucolic pleasures are offset by new issues related to population growth: disappearing farms replaced by housing developments, strip-zoning along once-pastoral roads, dependence on the automobile, overcrowded roadways, possible effects of pollution of inland and coastal waters and mounting waste-disposal needs.

Town of Brookhaven, New York Attractions, Activities and Amenities

The Town of Brookhaven, New York real estate balances upscale suburban living with rural sensibilities. Despite its high population, development in the town is mostly low density, with most homes sitting on about half an acre of land or more. Single-family homes dominate the landscape, with low-rise condominiums and townhouses sprinkled in, but few high-rise developments. Pockets of farmhouses remain as they were centuries ago.

Most residents of the Town of Brookhaven have made a conscious choice to withdraw from a city lifestyle, although some residents commute to New York City for work either by car or train on the Long Island Railroad.

The Town of Brookhaven and Suffolk County have always been a favorite getaway of tourists, especially New Yorkers, during the weekends. The Town of Brookhaven and Suffolk County continue to captivate people with the beautiful communities that line their shores and meadows.

East of Brookhaven are the world famous Hamptons, a popular vacation destination (for those who can afford it). With the eastern part of Long Island splitting into the North and South Forks, The Hamptons caters to the rich and famous, with its waterside inns, upscale shopping and luxurious restaurants. The Hamptons have contributed the terms “house in the Hamptons” and “Hamptons summer share” to the American lexicon.

Suffolk County is also the home of the Fire Island National Seashore — a collection of long, narrow barrier islands along the county’s southern shore immediately south of Brookhaven — which have become a favorite tourist spot, especially among gays.

Other state parks in Suffolk County include: Gov. Alfred E. Smith Sunken Meadow State Park in Smithtown; Caleb Smith State Park in Smithtown; Belmont Lake State Park in Babylon; Connetquot River State Park near Islip; Heckscher State Park, near Islip; Gilgo Beach State Park, on a barrier island southwest of Babylon; Brookhaven State Park; Wildwood State Park, on Long Island Sound east of Brookhaven; Orient Beach State Park, at the tip of North Fork; Hither Hills State Park, near the tip of South Fork; and Montauk Point State Park, at the extreme eastern tip of South Fork.

Bethpage State Park is a 1,476-acre state park in Nassau County (with a small portion in Suffolk County). The park has five 18-hole golf courses, named the Black, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. In 2002 the Black Course became the first publicly-owned and operated course to host the U.S. Open. It will host the event again in 2009. The park opened in the 1930s after the state acquired the Benjamin F. Yoakum estate. The park has picnic facilities, bridle paths, hiking and biking trails, playing fields, a polo field, tennis courts and cross-country skiing trails, but it is best known for its golf facilities.

Other recreational activities dot the county landscape, including golf, tennis, swimming, fishing, boating and hiking, to name just a few. Suffolk County has poured major resources into recreation and takes pains to preserve a healthy, active environment for its residents and visitors. Lighthouses, natural reserves and parks for bird-watching or cross-country skiing abound in the area. Suffolk County is certainly well-balanced with managed growth and nature preservation.

Suffolk County is home to numerous colleges and universities, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Dowling College, Southampton College, Saint Joseph’s College and Suffolk County Community College.

Whether you seek a luxury home, a starter home, a condominium, a townhouse or an investment property, NewHomesRealEstate.net can help you find the Town of Brookhaven, New York real estate you desire.