How to Start a British Boarding School on Long Island Without Embarrassing Britain

Now, 453 years later, this training ground of British ministers, thinkers and statesmen is coming to…Long Island.

In September, the Harrow International School New York will welcome its first students to a 170-acre campus in Oakdale, roughly midway between Manhattan and the Hamptons.

Harrow’s U.S. expansion is years in the making, and for good reason. Grafting one of the most storied U.K. boarding schools onto America without sullying the name is a high-wire act that requires both native savvy and an advanced degree in British elitism. 

That task falls to Matthew Sipple, Harrow New York’s principal. Sipple is steeped in New England prep schools. He attended St. George’s in Newport, R.I., and spent much of his childhood on the campus at Salisbury in Connecticut, where his father was headmaster. 

But Sipple and his team weren’t versed in Harrow mysteries like the Long Ducker (that’s a run) or Bluers and Greyers (blazers and slacks). And they certainly didn’t know about Double lines (a punishment involving much repetitive writing).  

The mother ship isn’t taking any chances. It sent Nick Page, a former deputy head of Harrow, to New York, where he held weekly tutoring sessions with Sipple and his team. And the oversight won’t end when the school opens. Harrow will perform three annual inspections—two in person—to ensure the Long Island version is up to snuff. 

Then there are the really tough questions facing Harrow New York: Will it use American or British spellings? Will there be girls? And what about the straw boater hats that Harrovians famously don around campus? 

Sipple and his team are preparing to host about 60 students in September, grades six through 10. That will swell to 350 three years later, with grades 11 and 12 tacked on. The cost: $75,000 for seven-day boarders; $61,000 for day students. Harrow has been hosting events and sending marketing emails to well-heeled parents.

“I think what we offer is a chance to be a part of a new founding cohort, a founding family, at a new school—but with traditions,” said Sipple. 

Kristine Lewis, Harrow’s director of boarding and pastoral care, touted British prep schools’ more “holistic” approach to learning than their American counterparts. 

They were sitting in a grand hall at the oceanfront Bourne Mansion, built in 1897 for the president of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. It will be the main house for the new school. Outside, rain fell from a pewter sky that might well have been imported from England. Long Island’s South Bay loomed just beyond a great lawn. All that was missing, it seemed, were students.

Remarkably, in an hourlong discussion, Harry Potter only came up twice. And no, the residential houses won’t be named after Hogwarts.

It might seem an odd moment to market Britishness in America. The U.K. is mired in one of its periodic bouts of malaise—this one marked by regrets over Brexit, uncertainty about its place on the world stage and a prolonged period of austerity. 

Yet according to Don McMillan, chief executive of McMillan Education, a Boston firm that advises families on prep schools and universities, Britain’s public schools have lost none of their global luster. 

“I think it’s pretty clever of Harrow to plant their flag in America,” he said. “Outside of Eton, it’s really the number-two brand of English boarding school. Period.” (That compliment may sting those Harrovians who refer to rival Eton as “the other place.”)

While “the other place” has stayed put, literally resting on its tradition, Harrow has been franchising for 25 years. There are now 13 Harrows spread around Asia. 

But Long Island?

The U.S. expansion began in 2016 when New Delhi’s Amity Education bought the Bourne estate and partnered with New York’s Adelphi University to offer classes for Indian students. The grounds had variously served over the years as a military academy and a wedding venue. Then, in 2021, Amity struck a deal with Harrow to establish five international schools, including one in America.  

The hope is Harrow New York will be a draw for international students, many from Asia, seeking a pathway to elite U.S. universities. For that reason, the school is ditching Harrow’s bespoke curriculum to offer the more widely recognized international baccalaureate. 

Like other boarding schools, it will be at the mercy of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Restrictions on student visas could cut off a lucrative pool of applicants. 

Meanwhile, Amity is proceeding with a $100 million investment to complement the Bourne mansion with four new residence halls, playing fields, an athletics center and more. The squash courts are ready to go. 

“Squash was invented at Harrow,” said Ryan Allison, the director of marketing. “That was, like, first on the list: Got to have squash.”  

There will be things at Harrow New York that might have made Churchill choke on his brandy. The school will use American spellings. There will be girls, unlike the all-boys original. And then there are the hats.

“Let’s talk about the hats,” said Lewis, a New Hampshire native who spent 17 years as a house mistress at the Sevenoaks School outside London and helped North London Collegiate School open its Dubai campus. “I’ve experienced everything,” she said. “The death of children’s parents, dislocated kneecaps, appendicitis, inebriation of students who got carried away at Fireworks Night.” 

On Long Island, where they might invite ridicule from the locals, the hats will be reserved for special occasions—and, apparently, marketing materials. The dreaded Double will stay home in England. 

“Every Harrow International School has certain things that make it a Harrow school,” said Sipple, “and certain things that make it unique to its location.”

Write to Joshua Chaffin at joshua.chaffin@wsj.com