Garden City Historical Society President Brian Pinnola, second from left, presents A.T. Stewart Award plaques to Janet Wolf of Bookspan and Sean and Jane McCooey. At a ceremony in early December 2006, The Garden City Historical Society presented its First Annual A.T. Stewart Awards to one residential and one non-residential property owner. Our first year's winners are: for the residential category, 109 Ninth Street, the residence of Sean and Jane McCooey, and for the non-residential category, 501 Franklin Avenue, the corporate offices of Bookspan.

The award was established earlier in 2006 at the urging of Society President Brian Pinnola, who thought that such an award might encourage property owners and tenants who construct new or renovate existing residential and non-residential properties to keep them within the historic nature and fabric of A.T. Stewart's vision for Garden City. The awards also apply to those properties that have been maintained and cared for by their owners or tenant with the same consideration. According to architect Angelo Francis Corva, chairman of the Town of Hempstead Landmarks Preservation Commission, who also served as the Society's architect for the restoration and renovation of its "Apostle House" museum, "I believe the substance of this award is apropos to preserving the architectural heritage of the Village of Garden City".

A committee headed by Society Vice-President Neal Griffin, along with Past President Joanne Adams, Dale DeMasco and Pinnola selected the two winners whose properties had been submitted along with several other contenders by the Society's board. The winners were presented their awards, bronze plaques inscribed with their property's address, year of construction, and the year the award was presented, at a ceremony on December 6 at the Society's Museum. Also in attendance were Society board and committee members, Mayor Gerard Lundquist, Trustees Donald Brudie, Nick Episcopia, and John Watras, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Althea Robinson, former Panama Canal Commission Chairman and Village resident Robert McMillan and his wife Phoebe, and Deputy Commissioner Tracy Kay of the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums.

109 Ninth Street was constructed circa 1873 and can be characterized as Romantic Italianate in style. Alexander Stewart hired builder James H. L'Hommedieu who built the residence according to plans designed earlier by the architect John Kellum, who also designed Stewart's "Great Iron Store" in Lower Manhattan and his "Marble Palace" residence on Fifth Avenue. This residence is easily recognized by its three bay configuration and gabled roof with a pair of round arched windows. The current owners purchased the property in 1996 and began renovations in 1998. Several of the original windows were restored and are still in use, and an original wooden horse hitching post still stands waiting on the front lawn. This residence is included among the A.T. Stewart Era Buildings that were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

501 Franklin Avenue was designed by Kirby & Petit for the publishing firm of Doubleday, Page and Company as a printing plant for its then popular magazine Country Life. It was constructed and completed in 1910 in only six months on a forty acre site. Henry P. Kirby and his partner John Petit were already familiar with the president of the publishing firm, Frank Doubleday. Only a few years earlier they had designed Doubleday's residence in Mill Neck.

The new structure would be a two-and-a-half story brick building with a crenellated parapet and a magnificent stone entryway with an English Renaissance style bay window designed to resemble Hampton Court in England. Former President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone, located to the left of the main entrance, in August of 1910 before a large crowd of well wishers. The original site featured elaborate gardens designed by Leonard Barron, who was also the editor of "The Garden Magazine," published by Doubleday, and included a rose garden and arbors, a rock garden, tennis court, and a decorative pool.

During World War II, the plant was enlarged and most of the gardens were lost to paved parking areas. However, even today, there are still numerous mature trees and shrubs situated throughout the site, which were probably original landscape features. Later, in the mid-fifties the entire structure was converted from a printing plant into office space. And once again, almost fifty years later, the entire building was completely gutted and renovated to contemporary office space standards, and the site attractively re-landscaped into the current corporate offices for Bookspan.