Oheka Castle - Long Island Mansions

Category: Mansions

Almost a century ago, financier and philanthropist Otto Hermann Kahn built OHEKA CASTLE in the middle of a 443 acre plot on the highest point on Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor, for an estimated cost of $11 million dollars ($110 million dollars in today’s currency). At the time of its construction, the French-style chateau was, and still is today, the second-largest private residence ever built in America. During the Gilded Age of the 1920’s, Kahn used the 109,000 square foot, 127 room estate as a summer home where he hosted lavish parties and regularly entertained royalty, heads of state, and Hollywood stars.

After Otto Kahn died in 1934, the estate changed hands several times, serving as a retreat for New York sanitation workers, and a government training school for Merchant Marine radio operators. In 1948, the Eastern Military Academy bought OHEKA, bulldozed the gardens, subdivided the rooms and painted over the walls. After the school went bankrupt 30 years later, OHEKA stood abandoned, except by vandals who set more than 100 fires in 5 years.

In 1984, developer Gary Melius purchased OHEKA and the remaining 23 acres which surrounded the estate and began the painstaking challenge of restoring the Castle to its original grandeur. Located 5 minutes east of The Inn At Fox Hollow Hotel.