A railroad suburb that kept its big houses
City Planning's own account starts with a train station. Richmond Hill "was developed beginning in the 1870s on land surrounding the then newly constructed Richmond Hill passenger depot." Queens Community Board 9, on its neighborhoods page, characterizes the area as Victorian, and the large frame house of that period is the main subject of this page.
One building gives the era a fixed date. The Richmond Hill Republican Club at 86-15 Lefferts Boulevard was built in 1908 to designs by Henry E. Haugaard, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission made it an individual landmark on December 17, 2002; the designation report is public. Landmark status attaches to that building, not to the houses around it. Whether a given house is designated can be checked on the commission's maps before you plan exterior work.
Two rezonings, and what they tell a buyer
The neighborhood was rezoned twice in seven years, and both reports describe the housing in useful detail.
- 2005, the northern blocks. The Kew Gardens and Richmond Hill rezoning covered 140 blocks between Union Turnpike, Queens Boulevard, the Van Wyck Expressway, Jamaica Avenue, 100th Street and Park Lane South. City Planning found that about two-thirds of the lots held one- and two-family houses. It singled out the area between 101st Street, Myrtle Avenue and Jamaica Avenue as developed with detached one- and two-family homes. It also counted more than 80 new residential buildings, with more than 400 apartments, put up between 2001 and 2005. The Planning Commission approved the change on February 2, 2005, and the City Council adopted it that March.
- 2012, south of Jamaica Avenue. The Woodhaven and Richmond Hill rezoning reached down to 103rd Avenue and east to the Van Wyck. Its stated purpose was to protect neighborhood character after tear-downs of older frame houses, and it pointed larger buildings toward Jamaica and Atlantic Avenues.
The 2005 document also records a quirk. A strip south of Jamaica Avenue, between the two Long Island Rail Road lines, was zoned for light manufacturing even though one- and two-family homes filled its interior blocks. If the house you are considering sits between the two LIRR lines south of Jamaica Avenue, confirm its current zoning and its certificate of occupancy; a mismatch there can complicate a mortgage or a later alteration permit.
For buyers, the takeaway from that early-2000s building wave is simple: not every house on a Victorian block is Victorian. A building from the 2001–2005 wave and a Victorian next door call for different inspections.
Inspecting a large Victorian frame house
These points describe the house type, not any specific address. They are what a house of this size and age typically presents.
- Roof and what sits on it. Steep, complicated roofs with dormers, valleys and turrets have many more flashing joints than a simple gable. Original slate can outlast several owners, but its fasteners and flashings do not. Every accessible slope is photographed, and the attic is checked from below for daylight and staining.
- Porches. A wraparound porch is its own structure, with posts, footings and a roof. Column bases and the ledger against the house are the usual weak points.
- Foundation. Houses of the 1880s to 1910s commonly stand on stone or early brick foundations laid in soft mortar. Pointing, bulges and signs of past water entry are looked for along the full perimeter.
- Layers of mechanical work. A 120-year-old house has usually had several generations of heating, plumbing and electrical work: abandoned gas-light piping, knob-and-tube remnants, galvanized branches tied into copper, a steam boiler replaced more than once. The inspection sorts out what is live, what is abandoned and what was done without care.
- Division into units. Big houses lend themselves to being divided. When a house is sold as a two- or three-family, the layout is compared against the certificate of occupancy filed with the Department of Buildings, along with egress from each sleeping room and the separation between units. A legal three-family also comes under the city's Local Law 152 gas-piping inspections, next due for District 9 in 2026, so ask the seller for the latest filing.
Age in numbers, with a caveat
The Census Bureau's survey geography here is Community District 9 as a whole, which also covers Woodhaven, Kew Gardens and Ozone Park, so there is no Richmond Hill-only figure. District-wide, the 2024 one-year American Community Survey estimates that about 86 percent of homes are in buildings from before 1980. Residential lead paint was banned nationally in 1978, so that share is a fair proxy for where old paint layers may exist under newer coats. About 18 percent of homes are detached single-family houses and about 29 percent are in two-unit buildings. These are survey estimates with wide margins.
Stations, and arranging an inspection
Per the state's MTA station dataset, the Jamaica Avenue elevated stops at 104 St and 121 St (J and Z) and at 111 St (J). The A train ends at Ozone Park–Lefferts Blvd on Liberty Avenue, and the E and F stop at Kew Gardens–Union Tpke to the north.
Rumi Home Inspections works out of East New York, Brooklyn, to the west along Atlantic Avenue. Masum Rumi walks the house with you in English or Bangla and sends the report the same day. Read about the general home inspection or, for a divided house, the multi-family inspection, then get in touch with the address.