Jake Finamore, a 15-year-old sophomore at Locust Valley High School, remembers when his dad would drive him to Lattingtown to view the reflecting pool of a mansion that once stood there.

During trips to the "Meudon" estate, he first became interested in learning about the world around him as it existed a century ago — a period when gilded mansions populated sprawling grounds.

“He brought me there, and I was just telling him, ‘I really want to know what this looked like back then,'” Finamore recalled in an interview.

The teenager dove into an online wormhole and uncovered tidbits of Bayville’s history. He found a still-living piece not far from where he lives: the Clarkson Estate. The mansion, on 8½ acres near the Bayville coast, “is the only one of its size that is still standing,” said Finamore, who has pushed local village officials to preserve the property that has fallen into disrepair.

“It’s one of the last surviving pieces of history in our area,” Finamore said.

The 65-room mansion, once known as Callendar House, was first built in the early 1900s by Peter Rouss, a wealthy merchant, before Robert Clarkson, the chairman of American Express, purchased the property that once stretched 73 acres, according to David Rapelje, the director of the Bayville Historical Museum. 

Clarkson sold the estate for $250,000 in 1958, and it later became Oyster Bay Hospital in 1961, according to Newsday archives. It was said to be the only hospital reachable by yacht, according to a 1981 article in Newsday. The hospital closed in 1969 and the home was converted into “The Renaissance,” a rest and recovery center for wealthy people struggling with alcohol addiction. By 1984, the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County had opened a facility at the mansion.

Bayville Mayor Steve Minicozzi acknowledged that the nonprofit is interested in selling the property, though there is no formal plan under review. It has not been listed for sale, he said.

Officials from the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County did not respond to requests for comment.

“It’s in very, very bad condition,” Minicozzi said of the state of the home, adding it would cost $10 million to conduct repairs. “It doesn’t seem to make sense for them to put that kind of money into the building.”

Minicozzi said the property is zoned for 1-acre residential use and that any new developer would have to subdivide the property to build multiple homes there.

Rapelje said the property lacks federal and state landmark protections that could prevent future development there.

“It’s the last of the big mansions that are in town,” Rapelje said. “They’re all, one by one, going away. It’d be a shame to lose it.”

The mansion at the 60-acre "Oak Point," where financier Harrison Williams lived, was torn down in 1950, Rapelje said. In 1966, the mansion on the estate of J. W. Quistgaard, a Danish painter, was razed amid surrounding development, Rapelje and Finamore noted.

Questions linger

Finamore has pressed the preservation issue at village board meetings. He made a post about it on the Facebook group, “Mansions of the Gilded Age,” that generated nearly 300 likes and supportive comments.

“I do think that there are routes for this home to be saved,” Finamore said.

Minicozzi said if the property is sold, a developer could request half-acre zoning to build more homes on the site. Alternatively, a developer could decide to preserve the mansion and build on the acres around it, he said.

Tara Cubie, the director of preservation at Preservation Long Island, said the number of large estates and mansions has been dwindling for decades.

"If you go back to the 1920s and look at all of the estates that were there and compare it to even 30 years later, it's a huge change," Cubie said. "We just lose more and more of them, it seems, every year."

She said the Clarkson Estate is a last vestige of that era. Preservation Long Island sent a letter to Bayville's mayor indicating the group is prepared to support any efforts to save the property.

The exterior of the mansion — adorned with four towering pillars and a grand staircase — are among the only original features, according to Finamore and Rapelje.

“In terms of historical preservation, I think, personally, one of the only ways for us to move forward as a community and as a society is by remembering and memorializing our past,” Finamore said.