Inisfada

Inisfada was the estate of Nicholas Frederic Brady and his wife, Genevieve Brady. Inisfada was located in North Hills, Long Island. The name of the estate, Inisfada, is Gaelic for Long Island.

The estate was completed in 1920 and was considered to be one of the largest of the Gold Coast Mansions on the North Shore and was once the fourth largest mansion in the United States. After the completion of building in 1920, it was estimated that the four years of work cost approximately three million dollars.

Inisfada consisted of 87 rooms and was on 300 acres of property. The mansion covered 90,000 square feet and was a Tudor-Elizabethan style home. It was created by architect John Torrey Windrim from Philadelphia, PA. Windrim was best known for working on large buildings, such as hospitals and museums. Inisfada was his only work done in New York.

The mansion was faced with brick and limestone. It was decorated with carvings, gargoyles, figurines crenellations, and 37 chimneys. The front of the home had a carriage porch with a carving above it of St. Genevieve, whom Mrs. Brady was named after. Also, the brickwork had carvings interspersed around the mansion of characters of nursery rhymes and fairytales. It is believed that the Brady’s childlessness and longing to help children is the reason they had carvings of fairytales and rhymes on the exterior of their home, but there is no documented proof as to why those were carved there.

In 1937, Genevieve Brady decided to sell their home, after 7 years of being in such a large home alone after her husband’s death in 1930. She sold the house for a deflated price of $471,761 to the New York Province of the Society of Jesus. After this sale, their home became known as the St. Ignatius Retreat House and was used as a retreat house for the Jesuits.

The Jesuits never had Inisfada added to the National Register of Historic Places or have it designated as a National Historic Landmark. Eventually in 2012, the Jesuits put the house up for sale, along with its 33-acres, for $49 million and advertised it as a prime development site. After seeing this, many residents and civic associations tried to save the estate, but despite their efforts, it was sold to a Hong Kong-based development company for $36.5 million. After the sale, Inisfada was sadly demolished on December 5, 2013.

Foreman, John. “In Memoriam.” In Memoriam, 8 Aug. 2013 http://bigoldhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-irish-channel.html

“Inisfada.” House Histree, https://househistree.com/houses/inisfada.

“Inisfada.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Nov. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inisfada