Idle Hour

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/