"Oheka"

 residence, LIGC - Long Island Gold Coast, movie / film / TV location, French Renaissance (architecture)

Estate home designed c. 1915 in the French Renaissance style by Williams Adams Delano (of the firm of Delano & Aldrich) on originally 67 acres of land for Otto Hermann Kahn {financier, capitalist}. Kahn served as a partner in the investment banking firm of Kahn, Loeb & Co., and director of Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad and over fifty other companies. He also served as president of the Metropolitan Opera. Kahn also had a residence in Manhattan at 91st Street and Fifth Avenue which is now used as the Convent of the Sacred Heart.

The 72-room home was built at a cost of $4mil and was reputed to be the second largest home in America at the time. Many of the structural elements were from the Guastavino Fireproof Tile Co. which protected the home from arson after it was abandoned for many years. Landscaping was designed by Olmsted, Lewis & Valentine, and John Jacob Levison; Beatrix Jones Farrand designed the garden rooms including several themed gardens and a Lovat cobbled pool.

In 1939, the estate was sold for $100,000 to the New York City Sanitation Department workers' welfare fund as a retreat for its sanitation workers which they renamed "Sanita". They were later evicted on a zoning technicality and the estate was leased during WWII to the War Shipping Administration to train Merchant Marine radio operators. It was subsequently owned by the Eastern Military Academy until their bankruptcy in 1979. Gary Melius purchased the estate in 1989 and then sold it to Nihon Sangyo Co. of Tokyo where it is used as an event facility and hotel, having underwent a complete restoration. The massive Lord & Burnham greenhouse complex is now used as the Otto Keil Florist and the carriage houses have been turned into private residences. The home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The restored grounds of the estate have been used in many filming productions including the music video for Taylor Swift's song "Blank Space", "Citizen Kane", "Royal Pains", and "The Path".

www.oldlongisland.com/search/label/Oheka
digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/ryr/id/56...
archive.org/details/artsdecoration2324newy/page/n49/mod...
books.google.com/books?id=QOEbAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP59#v=onepag...


www.youtube.com/watch?v=csU8neWu2ag


www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg