This year for my Birthday, my wife, the lovely @zenmommas, brought me to a Ohika castle for a one night stay. Thanks to @BakerChristopher and his lovely family for taking the kids, we were able to take our horse and buggy (beater of an old Prius) over to Long Island to visit's Otto Cann's storied home.

Arriving at the Castle in the late afternoon, it was instantly clear that this was a place like no other in New York state.

Otto Cann wanted to be a musician but his father (a self-made millionaire investment banker) had other ideas. He made young Otto become a a banker and by 1893 Otto was a rising star of Wall Street and empire builder with the Union Pacific railroad.

Cann became one of the richest men in the United States. But a little known one.

During our stay at the castle we were able to take in some of this rich history in order to share it with you.

The reluctant business man eventually made enough money to buy 6 houses, all staffed. Their summer home was one of the biggest houses in America.

But despite his immense wealth, he still had setbacks, a fire in their Morristown home is what propelled Otto and his family to move to Long Island. They bought the property that the castle now stands on for 1 million dollars. That got them 443 acres of prime Long Island land in the late 1890s! That's like 250k STEEM to buy a huge chunk of New York. Daym.

So Otto and his family were all ready to chill like the other filthy rich on The Island, but they were Jew and were shunned at the local country clubs and gold courses...

...so Otto had one built for himself.

Dude looked like the monopoly man.

It took over a hundred feet of dirt to raise up his land to make it the highest point on Long Island.

He built the second largest private home in the US (second only to Biltmore castle in North Carolina). A castle fit for a king and named Ohika after himself.

It cost $10 million to finish the house, replete with secret passages , a landing strip, a farm where they grew their own corps and processed their own milk, 125 servants (double daym) that lived over the stable, a horse Racetrack . Basically
the castle was it’s own little city.

Friends from all over the World flew in to keep all those servants busy and visit this Five foot, two, wealthy banker and his wife.

Otto loved music and art. He was the Chairman of the board of the Metropolatain opera.

He hung with Gershwin, The Zigfield folly girls, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, The Marks Brothers and Charlie Chaplain were all his close pal. Like hanging with Kim and Kanye today, Otto's castle parties were the inspiration for F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

With the Homies

1929

Then the crash.

The lifestyle was gone.

Homes were worthless.

Otto fell ill and died in his sixties. His wife wanted to sell the castle. The big white elephant dragging her down. But nobody wanted to pay taxes on them or maintain it.

In 1938 - NYC sanitation bought it as a rest home for their workers. Turned it to Non-profit. Called it Sanica Castle (took tge first 2 letters out of sanitation -- classy). Fox brothers and others bought pieces of the estate, reduced the acreage and sold 400 homes there.

During WW2 the Merchant Marine used the castle.

Nobody would buy it till 1945... for $60k. (Discount!) The Eastern Military academy, a private boy’s army high school
took over and brought tanks and cannons out in the gardens. A full army camp. The castle was a prestigious military school for 25 years. 250 kids per year. Dormitories upstairs, classrooms downstairs. After Vietnam things took a turn, war school became unpopular for some reason, kids weren’t coming and they lost their accreditation.

Place was a mess, the castle was falling apart, they couldn’t pay the heat. The school abandoned the house in 1978. Army equipment left out on the lawn, but little else.

The castle sat empty... other than the vandals that came immediately 1978-1984. Punk vandals. Destroyed the entire house inside and out beyond recognition. Recyclers pulled the stone, the copper, fireplaces, trashed it.

Squatters moved in along with the raccoons. A 6 year party.

Then: trashed

Now: not trashed

Then Gary Alias, a builder on Long Island, bought it in 1984... for 1.5 million dollars. Still cheap. It was the largest restoration of a private home in the United States. He restored it from the blueprints. Had the gardens re done after the original design by the Omstead Brothers who designed Central Park.

Then once it was nice, the celebs came back. Royal Pains filmed there for 7 years, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler’s Weeds End, Madame Secretary, even a Taylor Swift music video.

They even have their own crypto

Place is twice the size of the White House, hundreds of thousands in taxes and utility bills. And for one night...

...it was home.

Yours In The Chain,
Doug Karr

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HardFork Series Featured in FORBES

I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347

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