Oheka Castle was built between 1914 and 1919 by financier Otto Herman Kahn (hence, Oheka) on 443 acres on the highest point on Long Island, NY. It cost $11,000,000 ($110,000,000 in today’s dollars) making it second only to the Biltmore Mansion in Ashville NC as the most expensive home ever built. It has 127 rooms and totals 109,000 square feet and, at its height, employed 127 servants. After Kahn’s death in 1934, it became a military school then retreat for New York Sanitation Workers. In 1936 Kahn’s image was used as the Monopoly Man. Oheka sat idle for five years and then a developer purchased it in 1984. He spent $30,000,000 and 16 years restoring it to its former grandeur–the largest restoration ever! Today it is a wedding venue and a hotel, film, and TV location. Oheka was used in the opening scene of Citizen Kane and is reputed to be the inspiration for the Great Gatsby home. The first photo shows Oheka under construction, the third shows the sanitation workers in 1939, the fifth shows Kahn with Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.
