His Home Was a Castle

Otto Hermann Kahn was a rising figure in the banking industry and a generous patron of the arts. But to his wealthy neighbors in Morristown, N.J., in the early 1900s, Kahn had an overriding fault: He was Jewish.

Shunned by social and cultural organizations, Kahn was blackballed even by a golf club whose members he allowed to play on his private course. In anger, he sold the estate and moved briefly to London, where he had lived before without experiencing anti-Semitism. Then, in 1914, when his standing in the banking world rivaled that of the great J.P. Morgan, he made a statement that no one could ignore. He purchased 443 acres in Cold Spring Harbor and built a castle called Oheka.

The estate proclaimed his stature as a financier and philanthropist whom Will Rogers called ``The King of New York.'' Surpassed only by George Washington Vanderbilt's 250-room Biltmore in Asheville, N.C., it remains the second largest house ever built in the United States. When it was completed in 1919, Oheka -- the name drawn from letters in Kahn's name -- would contain 127 rooms and 62,000 square feet. Enrico Caruso would sing arias and Arturo Toscanini would conduct symphonies in the great ballroom. And in 1941 Orson Welles would film the exterior and gardens to serve as the home of Charles Foster Kane in ``Citizen Kane.''

Kahn was no Kane, but like the protagonist of the film, he enjoyed a privileged upbringing. Born in Germany in 1867, the banker's son was tutored privately at home and learned to play the piano, violin and cello. At 16, he became an apprentice at an investment firm. Ten years later, after a career stop in London, he was in New York working for the banking firm Speyer & Co.

Kahn hit the ground running in the United States and never left the fast track. In 1896, he married Addie Wolff, daughter of Abraham Wolff, a partner in the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. Kahn had arrived in the states with all of his possessions in one suitcase. Only three years later, the newlywed had accumulated enough money to take a year-long honeymoon in Europe and buy an extensive art collection that included paintings by Rembrandt and Matisse.

Wolff offered him a partnership at Kuhn, Loeb, where Kahn spent the rest of his career. The bride's father commissioned a 100-room home on more than 140 acres in Morristown for the couple, who also made do with a townhouse in Manhattan. A blaze in the Morristown mansion destroyed many pieces of art, and Kahn would insist that all his future homes be fireproof.

A small, dapper man rarely seen without a gold-tipped ebony cane, Kahn preferred discussing the arts to talking about Wall Street. He donated large sums to charity, saying ``I must atone for my wealth.'' He joined the board of the Metropolitan Opera Co., which he reorganized and saved from bankruptcy. As the opera's chairman, Kahn brought Caruso and Toscanini to the New York stage.

Kahn, who also had homes in Manhattan, Wisconsin, Florida and the Adirondacks, reportedly spent more than a million dollars for the Cold Spring Harbor property. He wanted his dream house to tower over the rest of Long Island, so workers spent two years piling up dirt with horse-drawn wagons to provide the proper setting. The house was designed by William A. Delano, one of the Gold Coast's premier mansion builders. Olmstead Brothers, the firm founded by Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmstead, planned the bridle paths and gardens.

The result was a five-story chateau patterned after the castles of France. It boasted a sweeping marble staircase in the entrance hall, a 2,500-square-foot ballroom with a ceiling nearly 60 feet high, 20 lavish bedroom suites and 49 fireplaces. As one might expect of a castle, there was a secret room off the library entered through a panel in one of the bookcases.

Several large airshafts ran through the foundation, allowing fresh air to move through the house and keep it cool even on the hottest summer days. Because gratings covered the conduits' openings on the hillside, rumors circulated that Kahn was keeping lions and tigers in the basement.

One of the finest 18-hole golf courses in the country was constructed on the grounds, even though Kahn showed little flair for the sport. The golf course and the stables make up today's Cold Spring Country Club. The estate included one of the largest greenhouse complexes in the country (now Otto Keil Florists), a gatehouse (now a real estate office), formal gardens with reflecting pools, fountains and statuary, a working farm and dairy, an indoor pool, tennis courts, an airstrip and a racetrack.

Kahn, his wife and four children moved into their new place in 1919. A private railroad spur and station was available for the family, their employees and guests. Kahn, who finally gained much of the social acceptance he craved, frequently had 50 or 60 dinner guests and sometimes the dining room was filled to its capacity of more than 200. Another rumor was that each egg in Kahn's Easter egg hunts contained a crisp $1,000 bill.

On March 29, 1934, Kahn suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 67. The funeral service was held in the ballroom at Oheka and Kahn was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Laurel Hollow. Kahn's widow could no longer maintain the estate and its 126-person staff, and it would endure future incarnations as a retreat for New York City sanitation workers and a government training school for merchant marine radio operators.

In the late 1940s, an upscale housing development was constructed on 256 acres. In 1948, Eastern Military Academy bought the mansion and 23 acres around it. Before going bankrupt 30 years later, the school bulldozed the gardens, subdivided rooms and painted over the paneled walls.

When the cadets marched out of Oheka, vandals moved in and set more than 100 fires. But Kahn's insistence on fireproofing paid off -- the concrete, brick and steel shell resisted the onslaught. In 1984, Mineola developer Gary Melius purchased the estate for $1.5 million and poured $14 million into a partial restoration. After five years as lord of the manor, Melius sold the estate for $22 million, but continued to manage it -- renting the mansion for weddings and other functions.

Last December the Town of Huntington approved Melius' application for a historic-zoning designation that will allow him to complete the restoration and convert the building into a luxury health spa by 2005. If that happens, Otto Kahn's castle may return to a semblance of its former splendor.