Gardiners Island: What Next?

Questions of ownership and land use hang over the paradise between the forks

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

For 358 years it has been their island. The family's ownership has survived Indian wars, pillaging pirates, the Revolution, the Civil War and two World Wars. It has survived the income tax, the inheritance tax, the Depression and bitter feuds.

And the island is not cheap to maintain -- nearly $2 million a year in upkeep and property taxes. Costs go up every year, too.

Today, Gardiners Island is the oldest family-owned estate of its kind in America, dating to the reign of Charles I of England.The 3,000-acre island holds a vast wealth of history. It has the largest stand of white oak in the Northeast, as well as rare birds, Indian artifacts, and one of the oldest wood-frame structures in New York State.

Its fields and forests, its manor house and barns, the carpenter's shed built in 1639, a stone wall built by slaves -- all hold the collective memory of Long Island history.

Since the spring of 1639 it has been in the Gardiner family -- but will the Gardiners have it much longer?

Robert David Lion Gardiner, the current lord of the manor, as each generation of Gardiners who have looked after the island have called themselves, is pessimistic. He is 86 years old, and has no children. On top of the issue of having no heirs, there's the thorny tax question.

``If you know anything about inheritance taxes in this country, how high they are, you will very quickly realize that it is all but impossible to keep this island in my family,'' Gardiner said as he toured the island last summer. Gardiner is worth millions of dollars, but said his own wealth, after taxes, will not be enough to keep the island going after his death.

``It's a miracle it has been in our family this long,'' Gardiner said.

Then there's the family situation. Gardiner shares the use of the island with his niece, Alexandra Goelet, to whom he does not speak. They have sued each other and warred for years over their sharing of the island and the question of its future. Gardiner has accused his niece of harboring a secret desire to cover the island with houses; for her part, Goelet has said in the past she has no such plan. She would not be interviewed for this story.

In the 1980s, Gardiner refused to pay his share of the taxes and upkeep, so the Goelets now carry that burden. But a court decision allowed Gardiner to continue using the island.

According to the legal agreements that tie the Gardiner family to their island, if Gardiner were to die today the ownership of the island would pass to his niece. Gardiner has said he does not want that to happen, and last summer, while touring the island and showing off its history and natural beauty, he said he was working on a plan to keep the island away from her.

``I am working on a plan to create the Robert David Lion Foundation which would own the island and make it available for small study groups,'' Gardiner said while sipping French champagne under the shade of a huge tree in front of the island's manor house. He is clearly an aristocrat in a country that doesn't have any.

Jack Raymond, a spokesman for the Goelets, said Gardiner does not have the legal right to convey the island. ``He can't unilaterally do anything with the island,'' Raymond said.

Beyond the issue of the trust, Gardiner said he would not oppose government ownership of the island, or ownership by a private group such as The Nature Conservancy. In the past, federal, state and local governments have said acquisition of the island would be beyond reach. In 1989, the island was said to be worth more than $125 million. The Nature Conservancy has described the Peconic Bay system, and its islands, as one of the ``last great places on Earth.''

So determined to keep the island out of his niece's hands, Gardiner has even gone hunting for a suitable heir. In 1989, he found a 48-year-old Mississippi businessman named George Green and made plans to legally adopt him as his ``son.'' What made this Green different from a lot of other Greens was his middle name -- Gardiner. The plan, however, fell through.

The family has nearly lost the island in the past.

In the mid-1660s, David Gardiner -- the first Lion Gardiner's son -- nearly lost the island through his own financial mismanagement. His mother, Mary, had to sell holdings in Connecticut and Smithtown to bail out the family and keep the island.

Centuries later, in 1937, the island was put up for sale by its owner. A few weeks before an auction of the island was to be held, another Gardiner -- Sarah Diodati Gardiner -- stepped in and bought the island. Upon her death in 1953, it passed to her nephew, Robert David Lion Gardiner, and his sister, Alexandra Creel. When Creel died, her rights passed to her daughter, Alexandra Goelet, and a son, who subsequently died.

Asked how the island managed to stay in the family, Robert David Lion Gardiner said last summer: ``We have always married into wealth. We've covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution, and both sides of the Civil War. The Gardiner family always came out on top.''