Long Island Tutors Come To You

The second largest private home in all of the United States is located on Long Island. Otto Hermann Kahn, who was a financier by trade, built the 109,000sq ft behemoth shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Long Island tutors tell us that the home is fondly called “Oheka Castle.” Kahn coined the name “Oheka”; it is an acronym from his name. (He also christened his yacht and Ocean Villa in Florida with variations of the same name.) Particular attention was paid to the sturdiness and fire retardancy of the build during construction of “Oheka” because Kahn’s previous home in Morristown, New Jersey had burnt to the ground. The home became the first to have its structure be fashioned entirely out of concrete and steel. Increasing the difficulty and duration of the job, the building was also built on top of a manmade hill. This was designed so that the building had a better vantage point for viewing the surrounding countryside.

In its original incarnation the grounds consisted of glorious French style water terraces, with clipped hedgerows, a full eighteen-hole golf course, a complex of green houses, tennis courts, arboretum, horse stables and a landing strip. The land use was altered significantly when the property was sold after Kahn’s death. It was bought up by the Eastern Military Academy and was subsequently used as a school; unfortunately, they did not keep the high maintenance gardens. According to Long Island tutors the gardens were destroyed, and after the school closed it became victim to numerous arson attempts and general vandalism. Despite this the building structure remained in tact even if rundown and dilapidated. Eventually parcels of the land linked to the property were sold, much of it became developed into single-family homes. The golf course and stables became included in the grounds of the Cold Spring Country Club, and the greenhouse complex took on a life of its own as the “Otto Keil Florist.”

In 1984 the history of Oheka was greatly changed when a building developer from Long Island who had long been enamored by the estate purchased Oheka and set about attempting to restore her to her original glory. This was a very expensive and time-consuming undertaking. He even planned to reinstate the gardens per their original design but eventually he ran out of money and had to sell the property midway through development. He sold the property and worked stalled, a few years later the building was inherited by the new owners daughter who allowed Melius to continue work on the property under some kind of lease-to-buy arrangement. Finally it was transformed to its former glory and it opened as a luxury hotel. The building that recently was converted into a hotel has over one hundred rooms, thirty-two of which are now guest rooms. It provides a fantastic venue for weddings and functions, and the “castle’ with it’s extensive grounds is a very popular location for movies and television shows.