🛋️ A Furniture Showroom Built By Hand, One Piece At A Time: Sophia Rose Home & Furniture

🐕 Two Dogs Removed From Dix Hills Home After Attacks Caught On Video

🏗️ Kings Park Developer Eyes 47 Acres For New Riverhead Senior Community

🥙 Cava Set To Open Its 4th Long Island Location In Valley Stream

Walk into Sophia Rose Home & Furniture and the first thing that happens is nothing. Nobody rushes you. Nobody trails you around the showroom reciting a sales pitch. You're handed the freedom to just look, sit on the couches, run your hand along a countertop that used to be scrap 2x4s from a wall demo before Peter Pirozzi epoxied and flattened it into something you'd want in your own kitchen. It's supposed to feel like you wandered into someone's actual living room, because in a lot of ways, you did.

Peter has been building things with his hands for 28 years, first as a carpenter, then as the owner of PFP Carpentry, taking on home renovations across Suffolk County, licensed, insured, the real thing. Furniture and carpentry were always cousins in his mind, so a year of planning turned into Sophia Rose Home & Furniture, named after his and his wife's two daughters. The showroom itself used to be a rundown, mechanic-shop-looking space that had sat empty for nine years before Peter gutted it and rebuilt it into a store that feels more like a home tour than a furniture aisle. Doors opened May 1st, 2026, in Mount Sinai, and the ribbon cutting happened just a couple weeks ago.

Inside, you'll find the traditional stuff, kitchen, living room, and bedroom sets you can order straight off the catalog if what's on the floor isn't quite right. But the real draw is what Peter can build that nobody else on Long Island is offering: custom raised paneling, accent walls, entertainment centers built to the inch, the kind of woodworking that fills their Instagram in reels of Peter mid-project.

Worth knowing if you're furnishing a room: retail pieces run in a comfortable middle range, most landing between $600 and $2,500, with full bedroom sets typically staying under $3,000. Custom builds are a wider window, anywhere from $5,000 up toward $25,000 depending on the wood and the scope, but that's the tradeoff for getting something nobody else has.

What Peter is chasing right now isn't more product, it's more people walking through the door. They're sitting on 25A, a busy road where people are used to driving past without a second glance, and everyone who does stop in tends to stay a while and leave impressed. They've already got plans in motion to fix that, including school fundraisers where a share of sales goes back to local PTAs, and an open invitation for local teams to use the space for car washes or game nights.

If you're furnishing a room or dreaming up a custom piece that doesn't exist yet, this is a store worth the stop on 25A in Mount Sinai. Follow along on Instagram and check them out at https://www.instagram.com/sophiarose_home_and_furniture_/, or find everything in one place at https://sophia-rose-home-furniture.myshopify.com/.

Join us in welcoming Sophia Rose Home & Furniture to the neighborhood spotlight, a family business that genuinely loves making a house feel like a home, and it shows in every corner of that showroom.

A Dix Hills neighborhood is breathing easier this week after two dogs involved in a string of frightening attacks were ordered removed from their home following a Suffolk County court hearing. The dogs were taken to the Town of Huntington Animal Shelter on Friday, where they will stay while the case works its way through court.

The incident that brought things to a head happened August 10th on Blossom Street, when video caught the dogs attacking a 63-year-old woman and her 65-year-old husband, leaving both with multiple bite marks. A neighbor named Anthony Long jumped in to help and got targeted too, pulling one dog off before the second came at him. Neighbors say the same pair was involved in an earlier attack on a teenager riding an e-bike last month.

The dogs' owner maintains they aren't aggressive and says both incidents happened after a gate was left open by a visitor. Neighbors, meanwhile, say the fear had become part of daily life on the block, with kids staying indoors and parents keeping a close eye outside. A follow-up hearing is scheduled for next week to decide what happens to the dogs going forward.

👉 Read more: News 12 Long Island

A quiet stretch of Harrison Avenue in Riverhead could be headed for a major transformation. A Kings Park-based developer has applied to rezone a 47-acre parcel from Hamlet Residence to Retirement Community, clearing the way for a proposed 81-unit assisted-living residence paired with 60 independent-living units for residents 55 and older.

The application, filed under Harrison Avenue LLC, is a straight rezoning request rather than one relying on the town's transfer of development rights program, which town officials have noted keeps the approval path more direct. Even so, it's far from a done deal: the project still needs Town Board approval of the zone change, Planning Board site plan and subdivision approval, and Zoning Board of Appeals variances for lot size and density.

It's the latest sign of how much senior housing demand is reshaping Riverhead's growth conversation, arriving alongside the town's ongoing downtown overhaul. Nothing breaks ground soon, but the paperwork now moving through Town Hall is worth watching for anyone who lives near Harrison Avenue.

👉 Read more: RiverheadLOCAL

Mediterranean fast-casual keeps expanding its Long Island footprint. The Town of Hempstead's Industrial Development Agency approved a lease this week for a Cava location inside Green Acres Mall, putting the chain on track to open its fourth Long Island storefront alongside its existing spots in East Northport, Melville and Westbury.

The new location will take over a 2,100-square-foot space at the mall and is expected to employ 18 full-time-equivalent workers. No opening date has been set yet since the lease still needs to be formally executed, but the approval alone signals another step in Green Acres' ongoing push to fill its storefronts with national names, following recent nods to Miniso and a Perfumes 4 U shop.

For Valley Stream shoppers who've been driving to Westbury or Melville for a bowl, the wait may not be much longer. It's one more entry in what's shaping up to be a busy stretch of retail news for Green Acres this summer.

👉 Read more: Five Towns, NY Patch

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