Generations of the Funnell family lived and worked on what they called Strawberry Hill. Today their homestead is best known as the home of Main Street Nursery.
In 1853, Henry Funnell placed a notice in The Long-Islander newspaper announcing that he was moving his candle manufacturing business to a location half way between Huntington and Cold Spring Harbor. In addition to making candles, he also sold strawberry plants and called his new home Strawberry Hill.
Henry and his wife Mary had immigrated from England in the 1840s. They had thirteen children. When they moved to Strawberry Hill, they occupied the George C. Wood property. The family later acquired land on the north side of West Main Street near what is today the entrance to Huntington Country Club. George Wood ran a livery stable in Brooklyn, but returned to Huntington after the Civil War. The widowed Wood later married Henry Funnell’s daughter Anna Maria, who was 25 years younger than he was.
Henry’s son Henry T. Funnell trained as a schoolteacher and taught in Binghamton. He later became Superintendent of Schools there and also taught at Oswego. He returned to Huntington shortly after the Civil war to take over his father-in-law’s drug store in Huntington. He continued to be involved with education as a member of the Huntington Board of Education.
Around 1892, he turned active management of the drug store over to his son Harry and went into the florist and nursery business with his son Archibald. Their first greenhouses were located north of Main Street behind what is now Rosa’s Pizza. Henry T. died in 1912. Archibald continued the business. In 1927, he opened a florist shop next to the family pharmacy at 306 Main Street in Huntington. Later he built greenhouses at the family property on West Main Street. In 1950 he moved the florist shop there as well. It was located in the small building at 477 West Main Street that is now home to DeLuca Designs. Archibald continued to operate the business until the early 1950s.
Henry T’s sister Esther lived in the house that is now Main Street Nursery. The house was built in 1876 for Esther and her husband George W. Barrett, who had been a whaler. Over the course of 12 years before the Civil War, he shipped out on three whaling voyages. It is said that he along with five other men formed “the heaviest boat crew ever lowered in pursuit of a whale.” None of the six weighed less than 225 pounds. Barrett commanded a steamship for the Navy during the Civil War and later was a captain on coasting vessels. He spent 50 years on the sea.

George Barrett died in 1908. Esther continued to live at the house until her death in 1924. Their son Frank later sold the house and it changed hands several times. According to an account written by Henry T.’s granddaughter, the Barrett house eventually ended up in the hands of “an unsavory character,” whom she did not identify.
That “unsavory character” was Nicholas Radano.
Radano turned the Barrett house into Nick’s Inn, which became the site of various nefarious doings over the years, including selling liquor in violation of Prohibition and operating a disorderly house. Nick’s Inn attracted many visitors, including the police, who raided the place on several occasions.
In June 1931, Radano was acquitted on a charge of selling liquor in violation of Prohibition laws. Radano had previously been convicted of “manufacturing alcohol, maintaining a nuisance and possession of a still.”
The month after his acquittal, the Inn was raided, and Radano was taken to Brooklyn to be questioned by the police as a material witness in connection with the murder of gangster Anthony Capato, an associate of Al Capone. During a search of the house, the police found several guns, two night sticks, and a slot machine. A revolver found at the Inn was taken to Brooklyn to see if it matched the bullets in the body of the murdered gangster. Radano paid a $50 fine for possession of the slot machine. The gun charge was dismissed for lack of evidence. Apparently, the bullets from the revolver found at Nick’s didn’t match those used in the murder.
Nick’s was raided again in September 1932 and Radano was charged with maintaining a disorderly house, which could mean operating a brothel, and violating New York’s gun law. Liquor was also found on the premises. Radano was again charged with maintaining a disorderly house in March 1934. He pled guilty to that charge and was fined $200 and given a one year suspended sentence.
Nick’s attracted unwanted guests other than the police. In September 1934, four men entered the Inn shortly after midnight and announced a stick-up. The thieves took cash from the bar’s patrons as well as the cash register. Then the thieves led the male patrons to an upstairs bedroom and told them to remove their pants. They were then tied to the bed. The thieves escaped before the police could be called.
Later that year, 42-year-old Radano married 28-year-old Dorita Armstrong, who had also been taken to Brooklyn for questioning after the 1931 raid. It was Radano’s second marriage. His first wife divorced him in 1932, at which time he was already living with Armstrong on Carley Avenue, around the corner from the Inn.
Married life didn’t mean the end of Radano’s run-ins with the law. In 1936, the restaurant, now called the New Garden Inn, was raided at 1:00 in the morning. Radano and a woman named Betty Fritz of Manhattan were arrested. Radano was charged with violating the Mann Act, which made it a felony to transport a woman over state lines “for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” Radano pled guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail and a fine of $2,000.
Radano was back in Huntington by the beginning of 1939, when he was arrested again. This time the charge was brought by his wife, who alleged that he struck her in the face with his fist. A few months later, he ran afoul of the town zoning code by building an addition to a stand on his property without a permit.
In 1947, Dorita applied for permission to construct an addition to the house for use as a restaurant. Neighbors objected arguing that the non-conforming restaurant use had lapsed during the war. The application was denied. The Radanos operated a refreshment or vegetable stand on the property for a few years.
By 1956, Gerry and Addie Raynor acquired the property as well as the Funnell greenhouses. They operated a successful nursery until they retired in 1974. As Bertha Funnell wrote, “Trees, nursery stock and flowers once more graced the neighborhood. Respectability and dignity returned to the Barrett property. The nursery business has continued under various owners to this day.
The two other Funnell houses remain private residences.