Cornelius John Van Bourgondien was born in Holland and raised on his father's farm. He came to the United States in 1916 and continued working in the family business but as an importer of bulbs for his fathers Holland Bulb business. He married Clara and in 1919 bought the Saxton farm, a 36 acre parcel of land in West Babylon.
They developed an immense bulb industry that consisted of five large 400 foot Greenhouses, barns, a packing room, a boiler room with a tall chimney and many out buildings. The house built in 1929 was planned by Cornelius and designed by architect Clifford P. Staudinger of Glen Head and built by E.W. Howell of Babylon.
After operating a successful business in Babylon for over fifty years they moved to the North Fork in the early 1960's and approximately half of the farm went to become the site of Our Lady of Grace church and the remainder became the Van Bourgondien County Park in the 1970's.
Today the Van Bourgondien home stands as an example of the Dutch Bulb industry that was so prominent in the town of Babylon in the early twentieth century. Little remains of the original seven Dutch families that established farms on Babylon and in their place is mostly development homes and shopping centers. But the Van Bourgondien Farm House provides a window into an era that is now long gone.