Hauppauge, NY real estate market

Hauppauge sits split between the Town of Islip and the Town of Smithtown in western Suffolk County, and that split goes back a long way. The line was drawn in 1798 when surveyors laid out New Highway, what is now Townline Road, dividing the hamlet between the two towns. The name itself comes from a Native American word meaning sweet waters, a nod to the fresh underground springs local tribes drew from here rather than trek to Lake Ronkonkoma, where the water was not fit to drink. That high water table is still part of the ground you build on here.

The earliest house on record dates to 1731, standing on land that later became part of the Hauppauge Industrial Park near Motor Parkway and Old Willets Path. The Wheeler family settled the area before 1753, and for a stretch in the 1800s the place was actually known as Wheeler's before the name Hauppauge came back into use. The Hauppauge Methodist Church, built in 1812 on land the Wheelers donated, still stands today and marks that early chapter of the hamlet's history. Hauppauge was also a stop on the King's Highway, laid out by the colonial legislature back in 1702, and part of that old route survives as Conklin's Road or Half Mile Road running west off Route 111.

These days the hamlet is known for what grew up around it rather than the old farm roads. The Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge, formerly the Hauppauge Industrial Park, is the largest industrial park on Long Island and one of the largest in the country, with more than a thousand companies on site as of 2017. Wireless Blvd there marks the old Mackay Radio site that once handled transatlantic transmissions until it closed in 1986. For anyone buying here, worth knowing that Hauppauge Fire Department is an all volunteer department covering that entire industrial footprint, and depending on which side of Townline Road your address falls, your town services and tax bill will run through Islip or through Smithtown.