Idle Hour is the former 900-acre estate of railroad
mogul and financier William Kissam Vanderbilt. It was completed in 1901.
Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the home, which continued to grow until
an 1899 fire. Costing $6 million, it
contained 110-rooms which included 45-bathrooms and a garage large enough to
hold 100-cars. Covering 70,000-square feet, it is purported to be the 15th
largest house in the United States. After the fire, Idle Hour was rebuilt using
red brick and gray stone and was designed by Hunt’s son Richard Howland Hunt.
The estate was also once part of Dowling College. Vanderbilt liked the area as
it was nearby the Southside Sportsmen’s Club (now Connetquot River State Park
Preserve).
When Vanderbilt died in 1920, the estate was subdivided,
but the buildings remained. In later years it was home to an artist's community
and then a cult before its leader was jailed. The Idle Hour Artists
Community was established by Mrs. Lucy Pritchard Thompson, her son William A.
Thompson III, and architect Betty Miller. They divided the stables into
apartments and sold them to those who joined their community along with a piece
of land. In 1937, the
mansion and carriage house were acquired by the Royal Fraternity of Master
Metaphysicians and Idle Hour was rechristened "Peace Haven". The Fraternity was a front for
a cult led by James Bernard Schafer. He was convicted of stealing from one of
his followers and in 1942 was jailed at Sing-Sing.
In 1947, the mansion, carriage house and 23-acres were
purchased by National Dairy Research Labs. In 1963, they were bought by Adelphi
University of Garden City and the estate became its Suffolk campus. In 1968,
this became Dowling College, but just six years later (1974) the house
Vanderbilt had tried so hard to make fireproof suffered another devastating
fire:
Unfortunately, when Dowling College closed in 2016-7,
the Town of Islip had yet to officially recognize these buildings as local
landmarks, leaving many of Idle Hour’s most important structures, including the
mansion, vulnerable to demolition. In August 2017, the mansion and other
Idle Hour properties were purchased by Mercury International LLC of Delaware.
Many of the outbuildings have since become residential homes and the old tea
house overlooking the river is now a restaurant called Riverview.
Sources:
“Idle Hour.” House Histree,
https://househistree.com/houses/idle-hour
“Idle Hour
Archives.” Preservation Long Island,
https://preservationlongisland.org/tag/idle-hour
Rodriguez, Arantxa, et al. “The Vanderbilt Houses and
Mansions in New York - Page 21 of 24.” Untapped New York, 9 Feb. 2022,
https://untappedcities.com/2021/09/20/vanderbilt-houses-mansions-new-york/21/
