Oheka Castle | |
Location | 135 W. Gate Drive, Huntington, New York |
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Coordinates | 40°49′44″N73°26′54″W / 40.82889°N 73.44833°W |
Area | 23.2 acres (9.4 ha) |
Built | 1914–1919 |
Architect | Delano & Aldrich; Olmsted Brothers, et al. |
Architectural style | Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Movements, Chateauesque |
NRHP reference No. | 04000996 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 15, 2004 |
Oheka Castle, also known as the Otto Kahn Estate, is a hotel located on the North Shore (or "Gold Coast") of Long Island, in West Hills, New York, a hamlet in the town of Huntington. It was the country home of investment financier and philanthropist Otto Hermann Kahn and his family.
The name "Oheka" is an acronym using the first several letters of each part of its creator's name, Otto Hermann Kahn, which Kahn also used to name his yacht Oheka II and his oceanfront Villa Oheka in Palm Beach, Florida. The mansion, built by Kahn between 1914 and 1919, is the largest private home in New York, and the third largest in the United States, comprising 127 rooms and over 109,000 sq ft (10,100 m2), as originally configured. It is said to be built on the highest point on Long Island. [2]
The castle is now a hotel with 32 guest rooms and suites. It is a popular wedding venue for socialites, celebrities and dignitaries, as well as the backdrop to many photo shoots, television series and films. It also offers a bar, restaurant, and mansion tours of the estate and gardens.
In 2004, Oheka was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1] It is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. [3]
Kahn built Oheka in response to Jews being forbidden entry to clubs and golf courses in Morristown, New Jersey, and because Cedar Court, a previous country home of Kahn's, was virtually destroyed by fire in 1905. [4] He was determined to build a fireproof building, so he had his architects, Delano and Aldrich, design it in steel and concrete, making it one of the first totally fireproof residential buildings. Two years were spent building an artificial hill on which to place the home, giving it views of Cold Spring Hills and Cold Spring Harbor. [5]
Kahn commissioned the Olmsted Brothers to design the estate's grounds, centered on a formal axial sunken garden in the French manner, of clipped greens and gravel in parterres and water terraces, screened by high clipped hedging from the entrance drive that runs parallel to the main axis. Other features of the 443-acre (179 ha) complex included an 18-hole golf course designed by golf architect Seth Raynor, one of the largest private greenhouse complexes in America, tennis courts, an indoor swimming pool, a landing strip, orchards, and stables.
Several years after Kahn's death in 1934, the estate was sold. After the sale, it was used for several purposes, including as a retreat for New York City sanitation workers. In 1948, Eastern Military Academy purchased the castle and 23 acres (9.3 ha) of its property, bulldozed the gardens and subdivided the rooms. The school occupied the house until it closed in 1979. For the next four years, the building remained empty, during which time over 100 documented arson attempts occurred, all of which the building survived, demonstrating Kahn's success in building a fireproof building. In 1946 the golf course and stables became part of the Cold Spring Country Club, [6] [7] and the greenhouse complex operated as Otto Keil Florist. Much of the remainder of the property was developed into single-family homes.
In 1984, Oheka was purchased by Gary Melius, a Long Island developer. Melius undertook the largest private residential renovation project in the United States to restore the house, which was in a state of almost total disrepair, and recreate the gardens from the original Olmsted plans. In 1988, unable to continue financing the massive project, Melius sold the property to Hideki Yokoi for $22.5 million (equivalent to $48,300,000in 2022). [8] Ten years later, following a lawsuit, the building passed to one of Yokoi's daughters and her husband. [9] They were unable to sustain the property themselves, so Melius reacquired it under a long-term lease and later re-purchased the estate, operating it as a weddings and events venue, luxury hotel and conference center. [10]
Celebrities who have been married there include Curtis Martin, Kevin Jonas, [11] [12] Megyn Kelly, [13] Joey Fatone, [14] Brian McKnight, former U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner, [15] and comedian Yannis Pappas.
On February 24, 2014, Melius survived a gunshot to the head by a masked gunman in the parking lot of the castle. [16]
Sands Point is a village located at the tip of the Cow Neck Peninsula in the Town of North Hempstead, in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. It is considered part of the Greater Port Washington area, which is anchored by Port Washington. The population was 2,675 at the 2010 census.
Otto Hermann Kahn was a German-born American investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. Kahn was a well-known figure, appearing on the cover of Time magazine and was sometimes referred to as the "King of New York". In business, he was best known as a partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. who reorganized and consolidated railroads. In his personal life, he was a great patron of the arts, where among things, he served as the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera.
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word mansio "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb manere "to dwell". The English word manse originally defined a property large enough for the parish priest to maintain himself, but a mansion is no longer self-sustaining in this way. Manor comes from the same root—territorial holdings granted to a lord who would "remain" there.
An estate is a large parcel of land under single ownership, which would historically generate income for its owner.
The North Shore of Long Island is the area along the northern coast of New York's Long Island bordering Long Island Sound. Known for its extreme wealth and lavish estates, the North Shore exploded into affluence at the turn of the 20th century, earning it the nickname the Gold Coast. Historically, this term refers to the affluent coastline neighborhoods of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay in Nassau County and Huntington in Suffolk County. Some definitions may also include the parts of Smithtown that face the Sound. The region is also largely coextensive with the Gold Coast region of Long Island, though this region excludes Smithtown, as the easternmost Gold Coast mansion is the Geissler Estate, located just west of Indian Hills Country Club in the Fort Salonga section of Huntington.
The Otto H. Kahn House is a mansion at 1 East 91st Street, at Fifth Avenue, in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The four-story mansion was designed by architects J. Armstrong Stenhouse and C. P. H. Gilbert in the neo-Italian Renaissance style. It was completed in 1918 as the town residence of the German-born financier and philanthropist Otto H. Kahn and his family. The Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private school, owns the Kahn House along with the adjacent James A. Burden House, which is internally connected. The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and, along with the Burden House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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G. W. & W. D. Hewitt was a prominent architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. It was founded in Philadelphia in 1878, by brothers George Wattson Hewitt (1841–1916) and William Dempster Hewitt (1847–1924), both members of the American Institute of Architects. The firm specialized in churches, hotels and palatial residences, especially crenelated mansions, such as Maybrook (1881), Druim Moir (1885–86) and Boldt Castle (1900–04).
Frederick Louis Roehrig was an early 20th-century American architect. Roehrig was born in LeRoy, New York, the son of the noted "orientalist and philoligist," Frederick L.O. Roehrig. He graduated from Cornell University in 1883 and also studied architecture in England and France. His architectural styles evolved over time, covering the Victorian, American Craftsman, and Neo-Classical styles. Roehrig is particularly known for his many landmark buildings in Pasadena, California, including the Hotel Green, and Pasadena Heritage has occasionally conducted tours of Roehrig's buildings.
Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert was an American architect of the late-19th and early-20th centuries best known for designing townhouses and mansions.
Oheka II was a private motor yacht built for German-born American investment banker Otto Hermann Kahn by Lürssen in 1927. Capable of 34 knots top speed, she became the blueprint for the Kriegsmarine's Schnellboot.
The Great Gatsby is a 2013 American historical romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was co-written and directed by Baz Luhrmann and stars an ensemble cast consisting of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Amitabh Bachchan, and Elizabeth Debicki. Filming took place from September to December 2011 in Australia, with a $105 million net production budget. The film follows the life and times of millionaire Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio) and his neighbor Nick Carraway (Maguire) who recounts his interactions with Gatsby amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age on Long Island in New York.
Beacon Towers was a Gilded Age mansion on Sands Point in the village of Sands Point on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. It was built from 1917 to 1918 for Alva Belmont, the ex-wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt and the widow, since 1908, of Oliver Belmont.
Inisfada was the North Hills, Long Island estate of Nicholas Frederic Brady and Genevieve Brady, a papal duke and duchess. Nicholas Brady was a convert from Episcopalianism to Catholicism and built the mansion as his family residence. Completed in 1920, the home was later given to the Jesuits. They used the building as a seminary and later as the St. Ignatius Retreat House. The property was sold in May 2013 to developers, and the house was demolished in December 2013.
Killenworth is a historic mansion in Glen Cove, New York constructed for George Dupont Pratt in 1912. It was purchased by the Soviet Union in 1946 to become the country retreat of the Soviet, and later Russian, delegation to the United Nations. In the 1980s the property was subject to allegations it was being used for espionage. There has been a long-standing conflict with the City of Glen Cove over its tax status.
Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels in the United States that have maintained their authenticity, sense of place, and architectural integrity.
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