Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Demolition by Neglect?

At some point over the last few months the wall at 'Spring Hill' in Old Westbury suffered a substantial but partial collapse.  The property, purchased from the Phipps family in 2004, has been subdivided and I had been led to believe the wall was to be restored (as long ago as 2008).  Nothing ever happened and it slowly deteriorated year after year until this most recent event occurred.  I do not know what the intention is in regards to the future of the wall but if the last couple of years are any indication the future does not look good.  Click HERE to see the wall in better days.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes.
I hope the developers are insured.
Looks mighty dangerous and I can't imagine the neighborhood kids are completely uninterested in hanging out there.
Scary

Anonymous said...

You forget the developer is John Kean, same guy who promised various groups that he would preserve Burrwood in Lloyd Harbor and then proceeded to demolish it. In reality the lot without the existing wall will be easier to sell since there will not be any restrictions on the location of the new house. It's obvious that was the intention all along. His firm builds pretty houses but he is not a man of his word. archibuff

Kyle Peterson said...

From what I understand, it wasn't Kean's call to demo Burrwood. Also, I believe they are trying to pitch restoration to buyers but the cost is astronomical. The wall will likely not survive in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Agree that the wall will come down, but he can claim he tried to save it.

According to Kean himself, owner of the Burrwood property and developer, at a meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, he gave the ususal developer excuse of having an engineer look over the building, (BTW when an engineer's fee is being paid for by the developer it always ends badly) but he quoted some preposterous number of close to $14 million dollars to renovate Burrwood. Easy to remember the figure, since a narrow skyscraper was being built in NYC at the same time, ground up, including land in the east 50's and the price tag for that 20 odd story building was just $12 million, LESS than renovating Burrwood, which was in very good condition structurally and cosmetically. His reassurances to preserve the building, let everyone breathe a sigh of relief only to find out one day it was being demolished, with no prior notice. archibuff

The Down East Dilettante said...

Demolition by Neglect has long been a favorite of developers. And, other than as an attractive open space feature, there is no financial incentive for him to do otherwise.

Sad.

Anonymous said...

Kean Developers has destroyed so much of Cold Spring Harbor and Manhasset with his overwrought styles of mc mansion....so sad.