Muttontown equestrian estate asks $7.3 million

Those who appreciate the history of Long Island’s Gold Coast era will be drawn to this 10.4-acre equestrian Muttontown estate with a 22-room home designed by the American architect John Russell Pope. But to the owner's son the value of the grounds and 6,500-square-foot house is that they were major characters in his childhood.

"In many ways the house was a play partner for me and my sisters," said Ari Ellis, who moved into the home in 1973 and grew up there with his parents and two sisters. "Every child plays hide-and-seek, but when you have a house with so many nooks and crannies, it’s a different event. We adored growing up in this house because it was like another family member and the grounds were like an amusement park."

The house was commissioned in 1934 by wealthy financier Otto Kahn, owner of Oheka Castle in Huntington, as a wedding gift for his son Roger Wolfe Kahn and wife Edith. It was completed in 1937.

Now the nine-bedroom French château, known as Le Boulou, is on the market for $7,300,000. The house, with eight full bathrooms and two half-baths in the Jericho School District has $108,623.82 in annual taxes. It includes a paddock and barn with eight oversized stalls and drop hayloft, as well as a jump course. The area allows for two-acre zoning.

Listing brokers Tim Lau and Ira Gross at Laffey Real Estate said the house has all original polished wood plank floors, millwork, exposed beamed ceilings and five fireplaces. The Ellis family, only the third owners, restored all the doors, floors and fireplace mantels to their original condition as a former owner had painted over them.

The original kitchen was opened up to combine three rooms and an indoor greenhouse was added so that fresh herbs could be picked right in the room. It also has a wood-burning barbecue built into the wall and a fireplace.

All the bathrooms have been redone over the years except for a ground-floor powder room. The first floor includes a solarium that overlooks formal gardens and a U.S. Open-grade tennis court.

A castlelike wood door leads to a cozy foyer with a spiral staircase. French doors in the formal dining room open on a patio with garden views, and there are three other rooms on the main floor, including a living room and two sitting rooms, one with a dry bar. There’s also another sitting room accessible through the greenhouse with a wet bar and a full bath.

The second floor has six bedrooms, including the primary room with his-and-her bathrooms, five windows and a Dutch tile fireplace. Other bedrooms share a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Front and back stairways lead to a third floor, which were the original staff quarters, with two more bedrooms, a kitchen and full attic.

The basement includes a polo room and sauna, as well as a cabana room with a changing area and access to the in-ground pool. The grounds include a three-car garage and a shed with three rooms, including an art studio.

"It’s a spectacular house in pristine condition," said Gross. "The only thing missing is central air conditioning because that was their preference. But everything else is perfection. You can’t duplicate the construction and materials because it would be prohibitive cost wise."

Ellis said, "The most magical part of the house for a kid is that it sort of looks like a castle, but what's extraordinary about it is that the proportion of the rooms are much smaller and cozier than the giant ballrooms of a similar era home. It just feels very much like a family-sized house."

There are many secret spaces in the house, Ellis added. "But I’ll leave it to a new family to discover them on their own."