On May 14, 2022, a handful of New York Islanders legends stood at center ice inside a rink on Vanderbilt Parkway and watched Pamela Gillies drop a ceremonial puck. The building had been the Dix Hills Ice Rink for decades. That day it became the Clark Gillies Arena, named for the Greenlawn resident and Hall of Fame forward who helped the Islanders win four straight Stanley Cups and who had died four months earlier. It was a hockey story, and Long Island hockey people still tell it that way.
But the rink is only one door into a property most residents only ever enter through a single entrance, depending on which season they happened to move in during. Walk 300 feet past the arena and there is a nine-hole golf course. Past that, an Olympic-size pool. Past that, a 1.9-mile trail loop through second-growth woods. All four sit on the same 152 acres, off the same access road, under the same parks department. Most people who live in Dix Hills know one of these well and treat the other three as places they have driven past.
That is the actual story here. This was not four amenities that happened to end up on adjoining lots. It was built, in stages, over twenty years, as one connected system, and the town has been quietly telling you that for six decades if you knew where to look.
One Referendum, Two Land Deals, Twenty Years
The land itself came in two separate transactions two decades apart, and each one shaped what the park could become. The Town of Huntington acquired the original acreage from the Havemeyer family following a townwide public park referendum in 1962, and Dix Hills Park opened in 1964. That first parcel became the golf course, the pool, and the ballfields.
Then in 1982, the town added acreage that had belonged to the Kalbfleisch Research Station, a former field outpost of the American Museum of Natural History. That addition became the Woodland Trail, the loop that now skirts the park's outer border. The park's main road, Robert J. Flynn Memorial Drive, runs through both halves like a spine connecting a 1960s recreation complex to an 1980s conservation add-on.
Most residents experience this as one park. It is actually the result of two civic decisions, made a generation apart, that happened to land on the same footprint. That is worth knowing, because it explains why the park does not feel like a single design. The golf course and pool have the shape of a mid-century town recreation complex. The trail has the shape of a preserved research tract that got a walking path added almost as an afterthought. Both are true at once.
The Rink That Outgrew Its Own Name Twice
The ice side of the park has its own layered history. The original rink went up in 1974 and was later enclosed. In 2010, the town added a second ice surface as part of a building expansion, giving Dix Hills two NHL-standard sheets under one roof, which is why the complex can run youth hockey, adult recreation leagues, figure skating instruction, and public skating sessions simultaneously without one program bumping another off the ice.
The 2022 renaming to Clark Gillies Arena was not just a plaque change. Councilmembers Joan Cergol and Salvatore Ferro introduced the resolution, the town board approved it unanimously in March 2022, and the dedication drew Islanders ownership and alumni including Pat LaFontaine and Bobby Nystrom. For a town rink, that is an unusually large ceremony, and it reflects how much weight Long Island hockey still gives to that dynasty roster.
What Each Piece Actually Replaces
Here is where the four-in-one framing gets concrete. If you priced these four amenities separately at private facilities, you would be paying for a country club, a swim club, a rink membership, and a nature preserve pass. Dix Hills Park bundles all four under one municipal roof.
| Amenity | Added to the park | What it functionally replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Nine-hole golf course | 1965 | A private club membership, at a walkable par-31 scale |
| Ice rinks (Clark Gillies Arena) | 1974, second sheet 2010 | A standalone rink or hockey club membership |
| Olympic-size outdoor pool | Part of the original 1964 complex | A private swim club |
| Woodland Trail | 1982, from the Kalbfleisch tract | A nature preserve or land trust trail pass |
The golf course is deliberately modest in scale, and that is the point rather than a limitation. At 1,940 yards and a par of 31, it is built for a fast nine holes or a lesson, not a full round that eats an afternoon. The course's general manager is listed publicly as Steven Dietz, and the layout includes an irons-only driving range and a practice putting green, which makes it more useful as a weeknight habit than as a destination round.
The trail tells a different kind of story. It loops the park's perimeter for 1.9 miles with about 167 feet of elevation gain, which is enough to feel like real terrain without requiring a car trip to Suffolk County's bigger preserves. According to the town's own trail guide, the woodland loop has a history unknown to many of its users, a fair description given how few people connect the trail's existence to the 1982 land transfer from a defunct natural history research station.
The One Thing That Actually Changed Recently
If you have not been to the pool or the rink since last year, there is a real procedural change worth knowing before your next visit. In November 2025, the Town of Huntington announced that Dix Hills Park, including Clark Gillies Arena and the Dix Hills Pool, was moving to cashless-only transactions effective December 1, 2025. That means the days of showing up with cash for a walk-in skate session or a pool day pass are over. If you are planning a visit and your habit has been to grab cash on the way, bring a card instead.
It is a small operational note, but it is the kind of detail that only shows up if you are actually paying attention to how this park runs day to day, not just what it contains.
What This Means If You Live Here
The practical case for Dix Hills Park is not that any one piece of it is remarkable on its own. Plenty of towns have a nine-hole course, a town pool, an ice rink, a nature trail. What is unusual is that a single household in Dix Hills can access all four without leaving a half-mile stretch of Vanderbilt Parkway, and the price of entry is a Town of Huntington recreation card rather than four separate membership fees.
The households getting the most out of this property are the ones treating it as a rotation rather than a single-season stop. Golf and trail running in the warm months. Pool days through the summer. Ice time from fall through late winter, since the two-sheet arena runs public sessions and lessons year-round rather than shutting down once the outdoor pool closes. The park was built in stages to support exactly that kind of year-round use, even if most residents only discovered it one door at a time.
If you are the person who has skated at Clark Gillies Arena for a decade and never walked the Woodland Trail, or the golfer who has played all nine holes without knowing they sit on land the town bought back in 1962, that gap is common. It is also easy to close, since everything is already on the same property tax bill you are paying regardless of which door you use.
Singh's Team works and lives in these Nassau and western Suffolk towns, and we pay attention to the details like this because they are part of what makes a neighborhood feel like home rather than just an address. If you are curious what your own Dix Hills property is worth in today's market, or you want a team that actually knows the difference between the golf course entrance and the trailhead, reach out to Singh's Team and get your free home valuation whenever you are ready to talk.
