The House Where Regis Lived

Aside from the generally large topiary and the mix-and-match facades of stone and brick, there is nothing that special about a particular house down 12th Avenue in Mineola.

It is a cozy two-story cape for a single-family built in 1950 with three full baths and a detached garage with a well-worn basketball backboard missing a hoop hung over the door. Well-trimmed hedges guard the front walkway up to the front door.

While ownership has changed hands numerous times since 1995 according to the Nassau County Title office, this home is special for one other reason: it is the former home of TV personality Regis Philbin when he is was growing up and attending school in New York City.

According to records, Philbin’s parents, Francis and Florence, purchased the newly-built home in June of 1951 and sold it in 1957.

A graduate of Our Lady of Solace grammar school in the Bronx, “Reege,” as he would come to be known, would go on to attend Cardinal Hayes High School in 1949 before obtaining a sociology degree from Norte Dame in 1953.

In less than a couple hours Philbin will step down from his duties as co-host of “Live with Regis and Kelly,” a position he has held for the past 28 years.

While Philbin was unavailable for an interview, in a 1998 article with the Long Island Journal section of the New York Times, he said that he returned to the house while on break from school:

I was away at Notre Dame. But that was the house I returned to between semesters. I remember it was right near the railroad tracks. My folks had gone house-hunting on a weekend. They never heard a train. Once they moved in the trains would come by regularly. I always kidded them. You’d hear the engine noise getting nearer and I'd grab the walls and shout, ‘They’re coming at us!’

Oh, but they loved that house and the backyard. They thought it was heaven. It was my parents’ first lawn. My mother would get down on her knees and pick the weeds out by hand.

Philbin’s younger brother Frank also lived in the home with the family and when Philbin was discharged from his duties as a supply officer in the U.S. Navy, he moved back home taking the into Manhattan to perform his duties as a page at “The Tonight Show” for NBC.

Philbin is no stranger to returning to the home, saying that he thinks about stopping by his former address whenever he visits a favorite Williston Park restaurant, the Riverbay Seafood Bar and Grill.

Calls placed to the residence Thursday afternoon were not picked up.

Philbin’s last show airs at 9 a.m. Friday morning on ABC.