Oheka, the Long Island Xanadu, Is Up for Sale

By , an Emmy Award–winning Curbed writer who has reported on New York City for four years Photo: Concierge Auctions Luxury Real Estate The Oheka Castle, on Long Island, has 127 rooms, a 72-foot-long ballroom, 110,000 square feet of interiors, and nine reflecting pools. The place looks like a château stretched to king-size American SUV proportions. It played Xanadu in Citizen Kane, hosted Taylor Swift in jodhpurs for her “Blank Space” video, and was the backdrop for countless weddings, including the one between Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner. The 23 acres of gardens were laid out by the Olmsted brothers. A restoration job that started in 1984 cost $40 million, possibly the most expensive in U.S. history for a private building. That restoration then turned it into a luxury hotel, a job carried out by developer Gary Melius, who is now being forced to sell after declaring bankruptcy. It’ll be auctioned on October 27, reports Forbes, with no minimum bid. Details: Specs: 34 hotel guest suites Extras: Ballroom, restaurant, bar, banquet rooms, terrace, formal garden with nine reflecting pools, network of tunnels for staff access, approval for 95 condos on five subdivided acres 10-minute driving radius: Cold Spring Harbor LIRR stop, Kerber’s Farm, Volpe Restaurant Listed by: Adam Modlin, The Modlin Group & Concierge Auctions It was built on the eve of the Jazz Age for a German-born banker, Otto Kahn, who reportedly served as the inspiration for Parker Brothers’ Monopoly Man. He had been blocked from joining country clubs because he was Jewish and instead built his own equivalent — competing with the Vanderbilts to make the country’s largest private home. (Their Asheville estate won the competition by a smidge.) It barely escaped despoilment when Robert Moses tried to build the Northern State Parkway through the estate’s grounds, saved only when Kahn more or less paid him off to remap the road; a sharp curve in the highway was, until Robert Caro came along and revealed the lurid tale, the only visible evidence. Kahn’s heirs unloaded the place in 1939, a few years after his death, and it was chopped up over the years to serve as retirement housing for city workers, a military training compound, and a boarding school, per Forbes. A listing photo shows the walls of a library that were restored with hand-painted faux bois. Photo: Concierge Auctions Luxury Real Estate The same room featured in Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” video. Photo: Taylor Swift/Youtube Melius gave it a solid try and had a pretty strong plan to make back his money, winning approval from the Town of Huntington to set off five acres and build 95 condos there, according to a listing from Adam Modlin’s team. (The auction will include that lot.) Modlin is the broker who managed to find a buyer for Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side lair and closed a $47 million deal this year to sell Ronald Perelman’s 40-foot-wide townhouse after it languished on the market for six years. But the castle makes those homes, with their shared party walls, seem petite. In a post he shared on social media, Modlin called it “a real-life Gatsby estate.” It’s been cited as a direct inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. The winning bidder could (after a near-bottomless spend) turn the hotel back into an oligarchical palace, or expand the hotel operation, or restage the monstrous Succession corporate-retreat scene that was filmed here. Boar on the floor! A listing photo shows part of the high-ceilinged, 72-foot-long ballroom, which has recently hosted a parade of weddings. A couple with a 2027 date was recently quoted $150,000, according to the fee-sharing site Tulle Together. Photo: Concierge Auctions Luxury Real Estate Oheka, the Long Island Xanadu, Is Up for Sale Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.