A Castle on Long Island That Hosted Gatsby-Style Parties in the 1920s Is Coming to Auction
Bedrooms: 34 hotel guest suites
Interior: 10,488 m² / 112,895 ft² Lot: 9.3 ha / 23 acres
Amenities: Ballroom, grand library, restaurant and bar, banquet rooms, terrace room, formal gardens, 9 reflecting pools, 3 fountains, and approval for 95 condominiums on 5.13 acres.
There’s a castle on Long Island that hosted Gatsby-style parties in the 1920s. Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks were among its guests. With 127 rooms, Oheka Castle was the second-largest private home ever built in America, after Biltmore. Now, it is heading to auction through Concierge Auctions with no minimum bid.
Completed in 1919, the château was built for German-born financier and arts patron Otto Hermann Kahn, who reportedly spent $11 million creating his summer home. The name combines the opening letters of Otto Hermann Kahn to form Oheka, giving the property its name, Oheka Castle. The original house covered 109,000 ft² (10,126 m²), surrounded by a 443-acre estate near Cold Spring Harbor, on Long Island’s Gold Coast.
Kahn commissioned Delano & Aldrich, the architectural firm behind the Rockefeller family’s Kykuit estate, to design the French-style residence. The formal gardens were laid out by the Olmsted Brothers, the landscape practice established by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, whose work included New York’s Central Park. Landscape architect Beatrix Farrand also contributed to the garden design. Beyond the reflecting pools and fountains were greenhouses, tennis courts and an 18-hole golf course. Around 126 full-time staff maintained the house and attended to the family and their guests.
The entertaining matched the scale. Accounts describe dinners for 50 or more, guests assigned their own valets, and celebrations that continued for days. Hollywood stars mingled with opera singers, European aristocrats and political figures. Photographs show Kahn alongside Chaplin and Fairbanks, preserving a glimpse of the company he kept.
During Prohibition, Oheka’s summer gatherings were remembered for their drinking, music and dancing. Some scholars believe the estate and its parties helped inspire The Great Gatsby, although Fitzgerald never confirmed the connection. The comparison captures the atmosphere of a house where wealth and celebrity converged during the Roaring Twenties.
Inside, the grand staircase took inspiration from the exterior staircase at Fontainebleau. The ballroom stretched more than 72 feet long beneath a 24-foot ceiling. Kahn’s concern about fire informed the steel-and-concrete construction; the library’s apparent wood panelling was plaster, painted using the faux bois technique.
After Kahn died in 1934, the property became a retreat for New York sanitation workers, a Merchant Marine radio school and later a military academy. Gardens were destroyed and rooms subdivided. By the early 1980s, abandonment, vandalism and repeated fires had left the castle without windows, doors, plumbing or electricity.
Developer Gary Melius bought it in 1984 for $1.5 million, together with the remaining 22 acres. Restoration eventually cost around $40 million. Roof slate came from the original Vermont quarry, windows and doors were recreated, and the gardens were reconstructed from historic drawings.
The work gave Oheka a new life as a luxury hotel, restaurant and wedding venue. Its screen history stretches back to its appearance as Xanadu in Citizen Kane. Later productions included Succession, which used it as a Hungarian hunting lodge, and Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” video. It also hosted high-profile weddings, including those of Kevin Jonas and Danielle Deleasa, and Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner. Entertaining once again became central to the castle’s life, this time as a hospitality business.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Oheka encompasses approximately 112,895 ft² (10,488 m²) on 23 acres (9.3 hectares). Following bankruptcy proceedings, it is scheduled to sell to the highest bidder on October 27, 2026, through Concierge Auctions, in cooperation with listing agent Adam Modlin of The Modlin Group.
The offering includes 34 hotel guest suites, a restaurant, bar and event spaces, alongside a 5.13-acre parcel approved for 95 luxury condominiums. The next owner will acquire an established hospitality property with scope for substantial residential development. Bidding begins at 10 a.m. EDT, with the auction closing live that day. A $750,000 bidder deposit is required, and a 6% buyer’s premium applies in addition to the purchase price.
All photographs belong to the listing agency.
