This castle is located in Sands Point preserve/museum. Originally built at the turn of the 20th century by Howard Gould and later owned by Daniel Guggenheim and Harry Guggenheim, it has since been converted to a museum and nature preserve.
The 216 acre preserve has two beautiful castles with fantastic Medieval and Renaissance period art and architecture. It feels like you've gone back seven or eight hundred years in history.
Five short hiking trails crisscross the landscape and lead you between the stunning buildings and the Long Island Sound.
History of the Village of Sands Point
The Sands brothers, James, Samuel and John, came in 1695 and bought 500 acres at the tip of a peninsula called Cow Neck from the Cornwalls, who had been there 20 years. The Sands and Cornwalls surely knew they had valuable real estate, though they never knew how valuable. By the 1900s, Sands Point was divided among 50 of the nation's wealthiest families. It was F. Scott Fitzgerald's East Egg, described in 1927's ''Great Gatsby'' as a place of ''white palaces glittering on the water.''
The name came from the Sands family, not from the beaches. Prosperous farmers and sea captains, the family owned vast farms on Sands Point and an inland farm in Flower Hill, now the Sands-Willets House, headquarters of the Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society. On a voyage to Virginia, Capt. John Sands brought back locust trees; their descendants flourish.
In 1910, Sands Point landholders sought incorporation to control zoning and preserve what historian Joan G. Kent called ''their elegantly rustic way of life.'' The original scheme for three villages (Motts Point and Barkers Point being the other two) was consolidated into one in 1917. The estates have since given way, and the once all-residential (currently at 850 families) village now contains a church, synagogue, county park and preserve. There are NO businesses.
Claims to Fame: Former Gov. Averill Harriman, publishers William Randolph Hearst, Conde Nast, John Hay Whitney, along with Newsday founders Alicia Patterson and Harry Guggenheim, called Sands Point home.
While you're in the neighborhood, take some time to drive by the light house on the north-west tip of the point (off the preserve), dating back to 1809. It's privately owned, however, and is not a park.
To claim this as a find, please post a picture of you (or your GPS) with Hempstead House. Hempstead House is the building by the paved parking lot.
One other interesting note is that the entire estate/preserve became a naval base in the 1940's - 1950's. Rumors have it that there were Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT, precursor to today's SEALs) deployed here for various stages of T&E on all sorts of things...