I think the kit BRASSWIPES is remembering was the one made by Marine Models, which was indeed located on Long Island. I wasn't aware of a connection between that company and the late Jim Roberts - though I know he was affiliated with Model Expo, which bought out Model Shipways. In the good olde days Marine Models (Long Island), Model Shipways (Bogota, New Jersey), and A.J. Fisher (Michigan, I believe) were the pre-eminent American manufacturers of scale ship model kits. Fisher is still in business; Model Shipways, in a form its founders would barely recognize, is now a division of Model Expo. Marine Models is long defunct. It was in business for a long time, and the quality of its kits varied enormously. Some were pretty nice; others were so crude as to be almost unbuildable. If I remember correctly, the America was one of the later and better ones.
To my knowledge the only plastic rendition of the yacht America was the one originally issued by Revell in 1969. It was on the rather odd, large scale of 1/56 (according to Thomas Graham's fine book, Remembering Revell Model Kits), and was reissued several times during the seventies. It's not in the current catalog, though examples show up on e-bay periodically. We had a discussion of this kit some weeks back in this forum. It was a pretty good kit - a sound basis for a nice model.
My senile brain contains an extremely vague recollection that there may have once been another plastic America - a tiny, waterline version from one of those early 1950s firms that later got absorbed by the bigger ones. I think it may have been a waterline version, perhaps in the notorious "ship in a bottle" format.
On the wood front, Bluejacket Shipcrafters makes a nice plank-on-frame America. It's a genuine plank-on-frame (as opposed to "plank-on-bulkhead") kit, with precut scale frames in basswood. The scale is 1/4"=1', giving the finished model an overall length of 25". Pricey ($320.00), but a sound basis for a scale model. The same firm sells a smaller, cruder version of the America that, I believe, originated with another company. The website is <www.bluejacketinc.com>.
Model Shipways used to make a smaller, less expensive America with a carved, solid basswood hull, but it's been off the market for at least twenty years. (That's a shame. It was a nice kit; the plans were done by George Campbell, one of the best.) I think Model Expo currently offers two Americas on different scales from Mamoli, one of those European plank-on-bulkhead companies. I've sounded off in this forum several times about the low quality and extravagant prices of most such kits; I'd be extremely leery of buying one. But if you're interested, the website is <www.modelexpo-online.com>.
If I wanted to build an America I'd either try to scare up one of the Revell kits or, if I could afford it (which I can't) buy the Bluejacket one. (In fairness, it's only reasonable to consider the price of such a kit in relation to the amount of time it takes to build it. As an investment in hours of leisure-time activity, the Bluejacket version probably is more economical than the Revell one - even at the latter's original price of $5.00.)
I'm afraid this doesn't help much. Sorry there's not a more economical solution - other than a pilgrimage to e-bay, which frequently offers remarkable bargains on old kits.