It looks as if Roslyn Harbor resident Carol Prisant will find a home for the memorial garden she has been planning for her late husband, Millard Prisant, a longtime leader in various Roslyn area renovation projects.

At its Feb. 12 meeting, the Roslyn Harbor board of trustees agreed to an on site inspection of a half acre of land off Glen Cove Road and Bryant Avenue, one that would be the future site of the garden. The inspection will take place once the weather improves.

A tour of the grounds by Mrs. Prisant and a landscaper will allow BOT members a clearer look at what the garden will look like. After that, formal approval of the garden is likely. Mrs. Prisant hopes to begin work on the garden in April. The garden, Roslyn Harbor Mayor Gerson Strassberg said, will probably take up one third to one half the space of the half-acre site.

Mrs. Prisant had hired an architect to draw up a computer-graphic of the memorial garden, which she presented to the BOT at that same Feb. 12 meeting. "The board liked the idea very much," she told The Roslyn News. Mrs. Prisant described the memorial as a "very formal rectangular garden" complete with boxwood panterres, lavender yews, and climbing roses. "It's pretty gorgeous and pretty big," she added.

In addition to the garden memorial, the Roslyn Harbor BOT has also offered to construct a plaque in Millard Prisant's honor on the same site. That was not something Mrs. Prisant asked for, but naturally, she is grateful for the gesture.

The garden, she said, will look "beautiful in every season...It will give a lot of people a lot of pleasure." Plus, it will reflect well on the achievements of her late husband. The sprinkler systems and other electric amenities will be handled by a foundation that Mrs. Prisant has already established. The land will be maintained at no cost to Roslyn Harbor taxpayers. In all, the project is much larger than an earlier plan Mrs. Prisant had submitted to the Village of Roslyn board of trustees.

Mayor Strassberg said the garden would also reflect the "great respect" village residents had for Millard Prisant.

In Roslyn Harbor, Mr. Prisant was a member and later, chairman of the Planning Committee. Starting in 1993, he also served as village co-historian. Mayor Strassberg especially remembers Mr. Prisant as helping with the development of Harbor Hills, a nine-acre site in the village. He was also active in listing homes in Roslyn Harbor for designation in state and national historic registers.

In Roslyn, Mr. Prisant served as president of the Landmark Society. He also was chairman of the Roslyn Preservation Corporation and led efforts to restore the Roslyn Clock Tower. Mrs. Prisant said her husband had kept the clock in the basement of their home during the time when it wasn't functioning. He did work on the face of the clock, while Morris Welte, stepfather of former Roslyn Mayor Janet Galante, worked on the clock's movement.

By 1995, three sides of the clock were in working order. Mr. Prisant also donated $5,000 for a scaffold that was necessary to get the clock back to the top of the tower. When he passed away in November 2000, Landmark Society members recalled Mr. Prisant climbing that same scaffold to paint the clock face of the Clock Tower. Other restoration projects that Millard Prisant was involved with included those on The Myers Valentine House, the Miliken-Bevin Trellis, the John F. Remsen House, the Thomas Clapham Barn, the Kirby-Sammis House, the Kirby Store and the Peter L. Snedeker House.