Hidden In An Abandoned Orphanage

Interested in the same stuff. Very good pics. Even put picture taking with ghost hunting especially in old buildings??

Sands Point Preserve

HOWARD GOULD BUILDS THE CASTLES
This former Gold Coast estate was created by Howard Gould, son of railroad tycoon Jay Gould. At the turn of the last century, Howard purchased land in Sands Point to build a home for his wife, actress Katherine Clemmons. The first building to be constructed was the stable and carriage house. Disputes with original architect Abner Haydel led to his dismissal. The Goulds then retained Augustus Allen to design the building in the style of Ireland’s Kilkenny Castle. The castle, completed in 1904, was built using fossil-laden Onondaga limestone quarried from upstate New York. Now serving as the preserve’s visitor center, Castlegould was named after the original estate.

The 100,000 square-foot building contained an equestrian arena, horse stalls, shops for blacksmiths, carpenters and painters, a veterinary dispensary, a kitchen, dining room and housing for some of the 200 workers. The estate’s many out-buildings included a magnificent greenhouse complex, a dairy barn and farm, a hunting lodge, guest houses, and a beachfront casino with an indoor pool.

Personal problems caused Howard and Katherine to separate in 1909, but Howard continued to develop the estate. He commissioned architects Hunt and Hunt to design an English Tudor-style manor as his main residence, which was completed in 1912. The massive 40-room house, built of granite and Indiana limestone, is 225 feet long and 125 feet wide, with an 80 foot high tower. At a cost over $1 million, it was once considered one of the most opulent homes on Long Island’s Gold Coast.

THE GUGGENHEIMS DEVELOP THE ESTATE
Howard Gould rarely spent time in the grand mansion he had created. Plagued by rifts in his family, he moved to England and sold the estate to Daniel Guggenheim in 1917. Daniel and Florence Guggenheim purchased the Gould estate, including all of the furnishings, for a bargain of only $600,000. The Guggenheim family had made their fortune in a variety of mining enterprises. Two of Daniel’s brothers, William and Isaac, already had estates in Sands Point. The Guggenheims named the main residence “Hempstead House” since it overlooks Hempstead Harbor.
In 1923, Daniel gave 90 acres of the estate to his son Harry on his marriage to Caroline Morton. Harry built his home on the bluffs of Long Island Sound in the style of a French Norman manor house. He called it Falaise, French for “cliff.”

Daniel Guggenheim became interested in aviation through the influence of Harry, and he established foundations to finance and promote aeronautics and aerospace science. Orville Wright, Charles Lindbergh, and Dr. Robert Goddard visited frequently at Hempstead House and Falaise. When Daniel died in 1930, his widow Florence found Hempstead House much too large to live in by herself, so she built a smaller residence on the estate. She later sold off the furnishings of Hempstead House at auction.

At the onset of World War II, Florence opened Hempstead House as a home for European refugee children, but that plan did not prove feasible. In 1942 at the urging of her son, she donated Hempstead House, Castlegould, and 162 acres of the estate to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, who later sold the property to the US Navy. The Naval Training Devices Center set up laboratories to design and test electronic equipment for Polaris submarines, jet aircraft, and space flight. When the Training Center moved to Orlando, Florida in 1967, the property was declared surplus; the federal government transferred most of it to Nassau County in 1971 for the purpose of recreation. Also in 1971, Harry Guggenheim died. In accordance with his will, most of his 90-acre estate, including the fully furnished Falaise mansion, was deeded to Nassau County to be opened as a museum. These two acquisitions, in effect, restored most of the former Gould/ Guggenheim estate as Sands Point Preserve.