To the Editor:

The officers and board of the McKownville Improvement Association are very pleased to announce that the proposal to establish a historic district for the Country Club Highlands residential area was approved on Dec. 9 by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation.

Our historic district is now listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places, and the nomination will be forwarded to the National Park Service for review in the near future for listing on the National Register. McKownville - Country Club Highlands is the area on the north side of Western Avenue between Fuller Road and Waverly Place, bounded to the north by the old Corporation line; it contains 94 contributing houses built between 1910 and 1952.

The nomination is based on the criteria used for the National Register, and eligibility for McKownville-Country Club Highlands particularly depended on the integrity of most of the houses in the district, and the development as a whole, to the original architecture and subdivision design. This residential integrity, especially for the houses fronting on Western Avenue, has been retained, despite episodes of attempted commercial encroachment during the 1960-90 interval, by the sustained efforts of residents and the McKownville Improvement Association.

The Country Club Highlands is only a small part of McKownville, which as a whole remains a residential neighborhood, with 87 percent of the land area occupied for noncommercial uses. To those driving through on Western Avenue, it may appear dominantly business, but even there, the north side from just east of Fuller Road to near the university entrance is entirely residential, and most of this section now consists of a recognized historic district.

The McKownville Improvement Association looks forward to the inclusion of additional parts of McKownville into an enlarged historic district, and to continuing to work with the New York State Office of Historic Preservation to achieve this goal. We would like to extend our thanks to SHPO staff members Bill Krattinger and James Carter for all of their hard work and guidance toward making the McKownville-Country Club Highlands Historic District a reality.

Ellen Manning

President

McKownville

Improvement Association