Monday, September 27, 2010

The A.C. Bostwick Estate

The Albert C. Bostwick Jr. estate designed by James O'Connor c. 1930s in Old Westbury. Bostwick was a well known steeplechase rider and owned the winner of the 1931 Preakness Stakes named Mate. He was known to his family as Brother to distinguish him from his younger brother George (Pete), also a steeplechase rider and polo player. He was a member of the Jockey Club and had been formerly the secretary and treasurer of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association. He and his brother credited their horsemanship to their uncle F. Ambrose Clark of 'Broad Hollow House', who taught them to ride at the family's upstate farm. Bostwick died at the house in 1980 at the age of 79. There had been plans to subdivide the property with the main house retaining some acreage and the rest being built on spec but those plans seem to have since fallen through. All 21 acres are for sale for $17,750,000, the listing can be seen HERE on the Prudential Douglas Elliman site. The house and 7 acres are listed at $4,250,000. Click HERE to see the A.C. Bostwick estate on google earth and HERE on bing.



Click below to see the A.C. Bostwick estate as it looked in a 1966 aerial shot. Listing photos from Prudential Douglas Elliman.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

within walking distance to starbuck's

Zach L. said...

And Seacrest.

The Ancient said...

Looks like Robert Moses really had it in for this guy.

Zach L. said...

The double whammy of living in the Southwest corner of the village. And to think in Bostwick's time Hillside Ave was probably a simple two lane country road too.

Anonymous said...

Zach,
Do you know which of the Bostwick's lived at Clocktower lane and Wheatley Rd.?
Was that Pete? and there was another Bostwick that lived on Brookvile Rd. (Pete Jr.?)..there was another famous Bostwick, Dunbar. But I am not sure he made a residence here. Dunbar liked Shelburne.Very
Interesting family.

Zach L. said...

George and Dunbar both lived on Willets Road close to Old Westbury Gardens. The Dunbar Bostwick residence was demolished within the last five years.

Clocktower Lane was the estate of E.D. Morgan, known as 'Wheatly'.

Anonymous said...

Z-
it was my understanding that the colonial farm house above the pond..right there on the corner(you can see it from Wheatley rd.)was a Bostwick home..that was at least during the 60's and 70's.I could be wrong.

Zach L. said...

How far above the pond? Surely not this place:

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=qt0sxb8w0pz8&scene=
8076044&lvl=2&sty=b&where1=
Old%20Westbury%2C%20NY

It is certainly possible that a Bostwick owned one of those homes back then.

The Down East Dilettante said...

I've just been doing the math: The house and 7 acres come out to considerably less per acre than if one buys all 21 acres. How does that work, do you suppose?

Zach L. said...

My guess is they believe whoever buys all 21 acres will still subdivide and sell off the rest of the property as the plans have been approved, my guess is the original developer ran out of money.

The Down East Dilettante said...

Just checked out the house on Clock Tower lane? Who on earth designs these houses, these awful sheetrock and stucco panel chateaux? And what makes people want them more than the usually lovely houses they demolish to build them?

Where, oh where are Delano and Aldrich when one needs them today?

Kellsboro Jack said...

Down East, I presume that the 7-acres (with house) would cost more to raze and/or refurbish then selling the other 14 raw dividable acres. So despite there being a house there on the its more of a liability factor of sorts hence per acre the 14 untouched ones are worth more. The house looks to be in rough shape.

The Bostwick family is a fascinating family and my 'user name' comes from one of 'Brose Clark's horse. (No direct Clark connection however on my part, just pronounced familiarity.) There are so many marital links within the clan to other noted families. As such their name seemingly has continued far longer then many of that era. Their Standard Oil fortune wasn't frittered away either.

The one thing in common amongst the whole family, as noted by Zach, being horses and competition. Brother Pete was a sensational polo player and steeplechaser who died - happily the legend goes - having a heart attack while still in the saddle during a polo match.

Trivial aspect - A.C. Bostwick's niece (Lillian's daughter) is Lilly Pulitzer.

lil' gay boy said...

Zach, you might also want to enlighten the rest of us as to the enigma known as Steven Schonfeld, who as you know built this house across the road from Clock Tower Lane.

After meticulously accumulating over 110 acres over the past decade, while based in Scion Hall on Whitney Lane, he & his girlfriend moved into the main house in January (she was gracious enough to admit me to the property whilst still under construction to photograph it). It is a stunning achievement, including a 9-hole golf course and enormous gatehouse.

The guest house sits squarely on the footprint of the former Roderick Tower house (known to some locals as the French house, a later owner I believe), but the original garage still remains in use as an equipment shed.

Unfortunately, Bing aerial only shows early construction views, but the link to the architect Oliver Cope's site, above, has some great finish photos. I believe it was either you or the RealEstalker who sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal article that claimed the estate has cost Mr. Schonfeld $90MM so far...

Jay Gatsby lives on...

Anonymous said...

Zach. Do you have any info on the George and Dunbar homes on Willets Road ?

I pass by on my way to Old Westbury and keep expecting to see construction...but as of late,still nice empty fields. I hope it stays that way.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

You can see French House still standing using Google Earth's historical imagery going back to 2000. Mynassauproperty photos of the new estate - http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/mynassauproperty/viewphoto.jsp?txtSection=19&txtBlock=A&txtLot=592&txtSuffix=0&txtBldg=&txtCondo=&txtYear=2012
Dunbar's house was demolished - http://wikimapia.org/#lat=40.7705968&lon=-73.6121321&z=16&l=0&m=b&show=/1870574/Dunbar-Bostwick-Estate
It also can be seen using Google Earth's historical imagery.

Anonymous said...

Zach, that atrocious chateau style house above the pond is exactly where the beautiful colonial once stood. I remember it well, though I don't remember whether it was owned by a Bostwick. Another loss.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

From what I can gleam about George's place it to is gone. Estate was used by Hofstra University and later sold for development. You can see it at HistoricAerials - http://www.historicaerials.com/?poi=13017

Anonymous said...

Thank you HalfPudding. I was wondering if the estates had names, and if there were any old photos to pine over.

lil' gay boy said...

You can see the Dunbar Bostwick house still standing here on Bing (with that lovely octagonal wing), prior to demolition. Rotating the map will reveal this heartbreaking scene of the house in mid-demolition, with the McMansions already closing in...

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

For $17million you get the Washer & Dryer! How nice.

lil' gay boy said...

For those who want to embed a link, remove the asterisks in the syntax below, and replace the french braces "{ }" with HTML open & close angle brackets "< >" (don't forget the double quotes around the URL).

{a href="*
http://www.whatever the URL is*
"}*
blue text as a clickable link*
{/a}


Happy embedding!

Security word - prouste: not sure, but I'm craving madeleines...

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

Yes,yes lil' gay boy it looks better on the screen but its so much easier to cut and paste then the extra steps involved to embed. I have this link bookmarked to make it somewhat easier when I'm in the mood. :)

The Down East Dilettante said...

aaaarghhhh----but the Tower house is lovely! I mean, WAS lovely....what the F is wrong with people?

Anonymous said...

The Clocktower lane farmhouse overlooked the pond and was directly where new house is (Model #7, beige brick, ugly 2 story entry similar houses along Rt 106/107 and scattered throughout Jericho School district. Farmhouse was lovely and authentic and perfectly scaled to site. Many wasteful fireplaces "no CAC" and , yikes, low ceilings. Better tear it down and built our monstrous dreamhouse, which we will sell after only a few years, as we really don't care about the area,and have no taste, but head it is a place for "rich people' to live.. I think, at one point one of the Corey's lived there. As road got busier they installed a charmingly primitive fence to screen house.

J

Rockroller said...

All 21 acres are to be auctioned by the David R. Maltz company on November 18th. Minimum bid is 4.9 m.
Info at the auction site says 'foreign investors' paid 13 m and obtained approval to subdivide into four oversized lots, but never carried through.

Anonymous said...

My dad worked for Pete Bostwick in 1985/6 as his estate maintenance man. I visited them many times and that home was in horrible shape back then. Pete was traveling all the time and his wife was usually there by herself or in Aiken SC no parties, nothign going on, just a lonely woman with flea infested dogs. She had a lonely existence in those years.

Pete Died and she went south leaving my Dad without a job and never saw her again.

My Mom used to clean her bedrooms occasionally, run errands etc so she got to know her well. I knew once that house went on the market someone would just knock it down, the property was wonderful but the house a mess. My parents lived over the horse stables in the photo in a large apartment. Have fond memories of visiting them there, sinking my nephews motorized boat in the pond out front and tons of baby frogs jumping in the pool.

Jill said...

My grandparents took care of the estate for close to 10 years in the 1980s. My brother and I would visit from New Jersey, spending much of our summers and school breaks there. I was just a kid, but the estate looked nicer then. It was just a wonderland for a child's imagination. There were horses in the stables (they still bred polo ponies back then). There was a log cabin above the pond we used to "play house" in and pretend we were pioneers or something. There were huge, like one-story tall, rhododendron bushes we used to make elaborate tree villages in. There were acres of apple orchards where we would run, climb, and chase the horses around. Exploring the wooded areas flanking either side of the property, there were hundred year old gravestones my brother and I uncovered, presumably of other Bostwick family members. I would play with the "neighbor" girls, twins named Eleena and Regina, and we would ride ponies into wooded hillside and build lean-tos and pretend to be early explorers. There was a large built-in pool to swim in, rose gardens and small labyrinths of manicured shrubs, the stables, and excellent sledding and ice skating in the winter. My grandparents lived above the garage near the horse stables. My grandmother cared for the manor house interior (though Bostwick relatives rarely came by) and my grandfather was the estate grounds maintenance person. I remember the inside of the mansion pretty well. Another wonderland for a kid, with room after room to hide and explore. Hidden staircases for the "help" to use inconspicuously at one time. There were three huge kitchens, drawing and sitting rooms and libraries, so many bedrooms and dressing rooms and powder rooms. It was a maze of spaces you could get lost in for hours playing hide and seek. While I was a kid and couldn't appreciate such things, the house was filled with antiques and art and even children's toys from another era. The attics and basements were jam-packed with discarded objects and furniture, and the dressing rooms packed with designer clothing for when "Sissy" Bostwick would make a rare overnight stay. I could go on and on with all of my amazing memories of this estate. It breaks my heart to heart that it fell into disrepair or it was (or at this point, is) subdivided. The best memories of my childhood were spent there, as the caretaker's grandchildren, kids of divorce and a single mom, who had this amazing opportunity to explore and be given such a level of access to this historic property.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

Thanks Jill to the insightful information! I am curious - Are you a regular viewer of this site or were you doing Google searches on the estate hoping to find info and came upon OLI?

Unknown said...

Have they demolished this estate? I am so curious as I have heard a rumor it was to be

Dave Russo said...

Jill---
You posted back in 2012 about finding grave stones "flanking either side of the property". I know it's a reach thinking you might see this, but just in case, can you be more specific please? The house is long gone but the property remains and I am a bit of an explorer and I'm very curious as to your grave sightings. If you see this please be very specific as to what you found and exactly where they were. Thank you!

David Russo said...

Hello Jill - Amazing stories, I know this is several years later, but I'm familiar with the property and I'm really wondering where these grave stones are that you say you uncovered with your brother? Can you tell me specifically where they are? This would really be amazing to see. I wonder if it was actual family members or pets? Perhaps horses? If you happen to see this can you please email me - my name is Dave and you can email me at: daverusso@hotmail.com

Thanks!