Dormitory building to be completed by fall 2025
By Samantha Rutt
The first major construction in over a decade is in the works at The Stony Brook School. The private Christian college-preparatory school, located just off Route 25A in Stony Brook, will soon be the home of Daley Hall — a dormitory building set to house 52 boys and four faculty families.
The new building will replace a 100-year-old dormitory on campus and will be named on behalf of Clayton Daley, an alumni of the boarding and day school — Class of 1969 — who is also the former CFO of Procter & Gamble.
“We expect construction to be completed in time for the 2025-26 school year,” said Dan Hickey, the school’s director of advancement.
Led by J. Petrocelli Contracting, a family-owned construction company based in Ronkonkoma, the soon-to-be dormitory building is set to be constructed in line with the campus’ existing land.
The construction will utilize the elevation drop, on the Quaker Path border of the campus, to their advantage as they are in the process of “moving earth.” As explained by Hickey, “We are using the land drop to our advantage, maintaining the proposed three-story structure but building into the hill to adhere to the existing tree line.”
Obtaining approval and initial concerns
Just over a year ago, in July of 2023, the school applied to the Town of Brookhaven Board of Zoning Appeals, for a proposed expansion to add three new buildings to the 55-acre campus.
The initial proposal included the construction of an indoor practice facility, a three-story dormitory building and a three-story STEM building.
The school’s original application proposed installing a parking lot from campus, near the sports facility, with exit points onto Chub Hill Road, Stony Road and Woodbine Avenue, potentially resulting in an uptick in traffic in the neighborhood.
Since then, The Stony Brook School has hosted several well-attended meetings with members of the surrounding neighborhood where representatives of the school entertained input, ideas and concerns.
“The new athletic facility was a point of contention with our neighbors who bordered our campus. We had several in-person meetings with our neighbors on campus last year,” Hickey said. “The result of those meetings was a desire on our part to change our plans for a large stand-alone athletic facility to an expansion of an existing facility — an idea that actually came from one of our neighbors,”
On Sept. 20, 2023, after several ZBA meetings and opposition from nearby residents, the proposal was finally approved, but not without modifications.
The new construction “will have less impact on sight lines and traffic/parking, and we are very excited to move forward together as a community,” Hickey added.
Additional construction
The Stony Brook School is now in phase one of two phases, which will complete the updates approved by the town.
Phase two is set to include two additional structures — an academic building that will focus on math-and-science-related studies and an athletic building. Both structures are still in the planning phase, as the school continues to work with architects.
“We are currently working on those plans and they are not yet before the Town of Brookhaven,” Hickey said.
Going forward, The Stony Brook School looks to continue to enhance student experience, campus facilities and being good neighbors.
“We wanted to be good neighbors,” Hickey explained in an interview. “The level of concern from our neighbors was real, we want to be good neighbors. Though the upgrades would benefit our school, it was not worth fragmenting our community.”
