LISTING DETAILS
How sweet it is! Deep in the heart of Cortland Manor is the enchanted 8 acre estate of the great Jackie Gleason and his famous Round House! Built in 1959, the compound exemplifies the comedian's style and flamboyant persona. There are 3 buildings on the property and 2 in-ground pools.
Drive up the long wooded property and welcome to the studio, affectionately known as the "Mother Ship". 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 50 sqft in Diameter and is completely round. Walk into this magnificent spherical foyer, private library and centerpiece of a marble spiral staircase to 3rd level.
Go back in time down the ramp to a smiling Jackie with his cigarette and playing his baby grand. Marilyn Monroe leaning over the strings smiling as Frank Sinatra is crooning by the 14 person bar. It has 2 bars and 3 pit Italian marble fire places and card room. Master bedroom has special 8ft in diameter round bed with overhead TV. Master bath is huge with round shower and 10+ heads. 100 yards from "Mother" is a cottage aka "Space Ship" with kitchen, fireplace and bath, circular by design.
MORE DETAILS via LoHud Article (link below for full article)
The home was designed by Robert Cika, who studied under Frank Lloyd Wright, and was completed in 1959. It took Gleason five years to build his round home at a cost of $650,000, a fortune at the time equaling about $5.6 million in today’s dollars. During construction, Gleason lived in an existing 1937 stone home on the property which he labeled “The Barracks.”
Fine craftsmanship is apparent throughout the home
along with idiosyncratic details that capture the imagination. Look up
and the wooden ceiling recalls the shape of canoes or rowboats, which is
no surprise since the builder was a Swedish ship maker. “They built
these in a shipyard hanger, and the design is like a signature,” Payson
said.
Look down and gape at the thousands of fitted floorboards with nary a right angle in sight. “Every piece of wood in the floors, upstairs and downstairs, was curved with a steam machine,” Bailey said.
Airplane-grade steel provides the
bones of the house, strong enough to support the weighty Carrara marble,
yet so delicately styled that the base of the supports were shaped to
recall the toe shoes of ballerinas.
Much of the original furniture — some
of it built-in like the card and shuffleboard tables in the first floor
game room — is not only intact but in excellent condition. The home’s owner for the past 40 years has seen his role not only as resident but preserver of its history.
He also added a third level to the home, including a
second bedroom and bathroom, contracting with the original architect and
using the same marble. The home today has 3,950 square feet — though
the original measurement of its 50-foot diameter still holds.
The adjacent Barracks adds another 3,500 square feet with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.
This
is the first time Gleason’s home has been on the MLS, though it has
changed hands several times. When Gleason moved to Florida in the 1960s,
CBS bought the estate from its star. The network
sold it in a private sale in 1969 to an owner who donated it after death
to Pace University in 1974. “Pace had ideas of using it as a conference
center, but there were not enough bathrooms,” Bailey said. “They placed
an ad in the Village Voice, and the current seller purchased it.”
A
retired orthodontist, the present owner also added to the home’s
celebrity lore, renting The Barracks and a pool house he built to
musician David Bowie and other notables.
Bailey
imagines the future owner will have a similar reverence for the
property’s provenance. “I see someone who loves architecture because
there are less than a handful of round homes, especially those build
around this time,” she said. “I also see someone very wealthy who loved
Jackie Gleason and wants to keep a piece of that history.”
196 Furnace Dock Rd, Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567
5 beds | 6 baths | 7450 sqft | 8.49 acres
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