This Year's Candlelight House Tour Stays on Setauket's Old Roads, Starting With Where You Pick Up Your Ticket

You buy a ticket for the Three Village Historical Society's Candlelight House Tour online, but you can't print it at home or show it on your phone. Tickets are physical cards. You pick yours up in person and show it at every stop on the tour.

So the weekend really starts a week early, at a pickup desk. This year every pickup spot is in Setauket: the Society's headquarters on North Country Road, the Setauket Neighborhood House on Main Street, and Elaine's Restaurant a little farther down Main Street. The 47th tour, "Along the Old Roads," runs Friday evening, December 4, by candlelight, and in daylight on Saturday, December 5. It visits five homes and one special stop in Setauket's historic districts. The member presale, at 20% off, opened at 10 a.m. on November 1. General sales open Friday, November 6.

Last December's tour was in Stony Brook

The 2025 tour, "Twilight in the Village," was a Stony Brook weekend. TBR News Media's preview showed Gamecock Cottage on Stony Brook Harbor, Hegeman Chapel at the Stony Brook School and the Reboli Center for Art & History. Saturday breakfast was at the Old Field Club, and breakfast ticket holders got an extra hour of early entry at the stops. Margo Arceri of Tri Spy Tours led a Main Street walk from the Reboli Center, plus a history of West Meadow Beach at a private waterfront home on the route.

The 2026 tour moves across the harbor road into Setauket.

The Society's events calendar lists a Friday evening reception with the December 4 tour and a Saturday morning breakfast with the December 5 tour.

As a point of reference, TBR listed last year's Saturday house tour tickets at $70 per person, or $56 for members. Tour plus breakfast was $120, or $96 for members. Last year's member prices worked out to exactly 20% off, the same discount this year's member presale offers.

Which roads "the old roads" could mean

The Town of Brookhaven's historic district information lists five local districts in and around the Three Villages: Bethel Christian Avenue Laurel Hill, Dyers Neck, East Setauket, Old Setauket and Stony Brook. Last year's tour was in the Stony Brook district. This year's is in Setauket's.

One stretch of road in those districts has a long paper trail. The Town's 2010 Three Village Conservation Strategy covers North Country Road where it runs through the Old Setauket Historic District, between Ridgeway Avenue and Route 25A. It calls that road "a significant segment of what is arguably the oldest residential street in Brookhaven." The report built on a 2006 restoration study by the Three Village Community Trust. The same document treats the Setauket Green and the churches, library and other landmarks around it as the center of the Old Setauket Historic District.

The Historical Society's headquarters is on North Country Road too, at number 93. Most of the ticket pickup windows are there.

When you pick up the ticket decides where you go

Pickup runs over nine days in three places. Each location has its own hours, and two of the windows are only for certain ticket types.

Two things follow from the schedule:

1. If you have a Friday evening ticket, your last chance to pick it up is Friday, December 4, at headquarters, and the desk closes at 5 p.m.
2. If you have a Saturday ticket without breakfast, you can still pick it up at headquarters on tour day. Breakfast + Tour holders can collect theirs at Elaine's that morning instead.

The first pickup day, Friday, November 27, is also the day of the Society's Walking Tour / Turkey Trot. The calendar fills up quickly after that: the Winter Holiday Market on November 29, then the tour itself the following weekend.

November 29 is a pickup day and a market day

The Winter Holiday Market and one of the ticket windows are on the same Sunday in the same building. The market runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside the Setauket Neighborhood House at 95 Main Street, and ticket pickup there runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

According to the market page, the Society is hosting 32 local vendors. The food tables include greenery and floral arrangements, New York cheese, balsamic glazes, local honey, decorated cookies, soups, pickles and farm-fresh preserves. The artisans bring jewelry, small-batch soaps, hand-poured candles, pottery, woodworking, knit blankets, stained glass and paintings. The Society also runs a pop-up gift shop with Culper Spy Ring items and a mobile bookstore of local authors and Long Island histories. A second market date is set for Sunday, December 13, with the same hours and location, but the Candlelight pickup only happens at the November 29 market.

The pickup desk sits beside the Society's biggest building project

The Candlelight House Tour is the Society's largest fundraiser of the year. It supports the Society's education programs, preservation work, exhibitions and community outreach. If you pick up your ticket at headquarters, you're also standing next to the Society's largest building project.

Per the Society's Build the Barn page, the Dominick-Crawford Barn Education & History Center is planned for the 2.26-acre field at 93 North Country Road. It will reuse parts of a barn from around 1840 that originally stood in Old Field. The Society stepped in to save that barn when it faced demolition. The plans call for teaching space, interactive exhibits and archive facilities open to staff, local educators, students and the public, with room for community events of up to 183 people. The name comes from the barn's first and last private owners. The Society believes George Dominick built it after he and his wife, Sarah H. Dominick, bought the homestead.

The project has a funding history. Footings were poured in April 2023. The Society has received a $350,000 grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, $300,000 through New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright, and a third grant from Suffolk County's JumpSMART Downtown Business Investment Program. The Society says rising building costs and delays have nearly doubled the projected cost since its first campaign, to $1.3 million.

Last December's tour preview in TBR mentioned the Society's preparations for America 250 and for opening the new center in 2026. That tour was dedicated to Janette Handley, whose decades of work with the Society included bringing local businesses into partnership with it. This year's pickup list still includes a Main Street restaurant.

General admission tickets go on sale online Friday, November 6. Pickup starts at 93 North Country Road at noon on Friday, November 27.

Old homes on Setauket's historic roads are what the Candlelight tour opens up every December. If you own one, its history and its condition both affect what it's worth. Kenny Calderon and Team Calderon bring construction-management experience to those conversations, from original framing to past renovations. When you want a clear, local read on your home, get a free home valuation.