Hempstead House - Sands Point

 Hempstead House is one of four mansions on the grounds of the Guggenheim Estate in Sands Point, which also includes Castle Gould, Falaise, and Mille Fleur. The Tudor-style castle served as a summer residence for the family.

It was designed by architects Hunt & Hunt in 1912. The mansion is a 50,000-square-foot three-story building. It has 40 rooms, including a 60-foot-tall entry foyer. The first and second floors of the Hempstead House measure over 1.5 acres. Inside the foyer, the Wurlitzer Opus 445 Theatre Organ is fully restored. 

The walnut-paneled Library was copied from the palace of King James I, and relief portraits of literary figures still decorate its plaster ceiling. The Billiard Room originally featured a gold leaf ceiling, hand-tooled leather wall coverings, and carved oak woodwork from a 17th-Century Spanish palace. Stone gargoyles around the ceiling peer down into the Summer Living Room.

The sunken Palm Court once contained 150 species of rare orchids, plants and potted trees. An aviary housed exotic birds in ornate cages among the flowers. On the mezzanine level is the Breakfast Room with leaded windows on three sides overlooking the park grounds. All of the rooms on the second floor have carved fireplaces and are detailed with ornate plaster trim on the walls and ceilings, each in a unique style.

After Daniel Guggenheim’s death in 1930, his wife Florence closed Hempstead House. Hempstead House’s furnishings were sold in 1940, and Florence opened the mansion to children evacuated from the war in Europe until foster homes could be found for them. In 1942, she donated 162 acres of the estate to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. The U.S. Navy purchased the property in 1946 for a Naval Training Device Center, and, in 1971, the property was acquired by Nassau County.

Source:

“Hempstead House.” Sands Point Preserve, www.sandspointpreserveconservancy.org/about/hempstead-house/. Accessed 14 June 2026.