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Home of Carleton Macy, president of the Hewlett Bay Company.
Carleton Macy (1872-1949)
Carleton Macy, son of Josiah Henry and Jane (Carpenter) Macy, was born October 14, 1872, in White Plains. He was graduated from Westchester Academy under the famous Dr. D. W. Abercrombie and then went with the General Electric Company, taking their students' course in Electrical Engineering. That was in 1894. There had never been any question in young Macy's mind as to the vocation he wished to pursue, and so he lost no time as so many youths do in seeking to discover his forte. As a lad he was an attentive reader of the "Scientific American," and worked put many of the devices he found described in its pages. After a little more than a year with the General Electric Company he went into the power and mining department of that concern under J. R. McKee, and was assistant to Maurice Oudin, who had charge of the multiphase work. Mr. Macy remained in that department three years. He was then sent out as district engineer and assistant manager with General Irving Hale at Denver. That was the office of the General Electric Company that covered Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah. When the Spanish-American War broke out General Hale went into the service and Mr. Macy was put in charge of the territory during the General's absence. The West was still "wild and woolly," and Mr. Macy had many opportunities to see frontier life as it really was. After a few months of illness, Mr. Macy was transferred on March 17, 1900, to the general office of the company in New York City in association with J. R. McKee. About one year later Mr. Macy was transferred to the office of the first vice-president of the company, General Eugene Griffin, and continued there until august 1, 1902, when he resigned to become treasurer and assistant to the president of the Queens Borough Gas and Electric Company. In 1903, Mr. Macy was made president and general manager of the company and remained with it in that capacity until December 31, 1927. During the period of Mr. Macy's service the company's list of patrons grew from 2,000 to 70,000.
This tremendous expansion involved almost every problem the human mind is called upon to solve; and of these, the technical engineering problems were perhaps, the least difficult. The growth in the company's personnel and the constantly increasing number of consumers demanding and getting service presented, each in its own field, problems inhuman relationships, problems in ethics, problems in expediency, to the correct solution of which a fine sense of values was a prerequisite, as was also a knowledge of the psychological reactions of the human mind. The development of business characteristic of the present age, from individual to corporate enterprise, necessitated by the ever-increasing magnitude of the operations involved in serving the public, has been accompanied from the very beginning by a marked hostility on the part of that very public most benefited by the efficiency and economics such corporate management makes possible. Truly, to be chief executive of such a business is a man-sized job! But Mr. Macy applied the engineering method in meeting every exigency as it arose; gathered all possible relevant facts; considered them objectively from every angle, abiding always by the conclusion enforced by logic, whether at the moment that conclusion were agreeable or not. The results were as good service as was humanly possible, fair charges for the same and an atmosphere of general good will that fully justified his uncompromising stand for honest, open, straightforward dealing.
During that period Mr. Macy was also president of the Hewlett Bay Company, which since about 1907 had been engaged in developing real estate. He still holds that office. The company is now engaged in developing high-class residential property on the south shore of Long Island. For ten or fifteen years he has been a director of the National Bank of Far Rockaway. He is treasurer, and a director of the Hudson Company; president and a director of Lefferts Company; director of Hewlett Woodmere National Bank; Beaver Mills; Millwood Corporation; Anchor Cap and Closure Corporation; Martel Mills; Seawane Corporation. He is a member of the Republican Club, Rockaway Hunting, Cedarhurst. Long Island. He is a member of Far Rockaway Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons; Union Club of New York City, the Turf and Field Club, the Adirondack League Club, Seawane County Club and the Bankers' Club of New York City. Photography is hi main hobby; but he is very much interested in flower gardening. He calls his summer home at Hewlett, Long Island, "Wonderwhy."
Carleton Macy married, December 11, 1900, in New York City, Helen Lefferts, daughter of Oscar Lefferts of Brooklyn, and a representative of one of New York's old Dutch families. Mrs. Macy is a member of the Colonial Dames, Daughters of the American Revolution, Huguenot Society and other patriotic and social organizations. Mr. and Mrs. Macy are members of the Episcopal Church, of which he has been a vestryman for more than twenty years.