A spokesman for a Queens-based health-care company said last week that the Jesuit order which operates the St. Ignatius Retreat House in Manhasset had recently made a verbal agreement to reconsider the sale of the former Gold Coast mansion to a buyer planning to demolish the retreat and build housing.
But Lou Paolillo, a spokesman on behalf of the Community Wellness Centers of America LLC, said the Roman Catholic Order is not following through on its agreement.
“We made a verbal agreement two weeks ago, and they said if you can get us out of the contract, we will,” Paolillo said. “And now they won’t give us any information about the buyer or the terms of the contract.”
Paolillo said Community Wellness Centers is willing to match the offer the Jesuits received on the property and continue the mansion’s work as a retreat house – a plan supported by Manhasset civic associations.
The 87-room, 37-chimney Gold Coast mansion, which sits on 33 acres of property just off Searingtown Road not far from Christopher Morley Park, closed its doors June 2 after being maintained by the Jesuit order since the late 1930s, just as negotiations for the property’s sale began to intensify. It had been on the housing market for nearly a year for $49 million.
According to reports, it is unclear whether the buyer the Jesuits are in negotiations with a buyer who plans to maintain the mansion and build around it or demolish it outright, but the property has zoning for two houses per acre.
Rev. Vincent Cooke, who is overseeing the sale of the property for the Jesuit order’s New York province, said he has not responded to the Community Wellness Centers’ offer because he is not at liberty to disclose specific details about the negotiation.
“I have the obligation to refer anybody to our authorized agent. I’ve referred anybody who’s mentioned anything to me about it,” Cooke said. “Whether they have [disclosed information] or not, I don’t know.”
Cooke did not identify the buyer or sale price in an interview with Blank Slate Media, but he said the negotiations were going as planned.
“We have a legally binding agreement that we entered into in good faith with the people we’re in negotiation with and we intend to honor our obligations,” Cooke said.
The Jesuits are represented by Guthrie Garvin, of Massey Knakal Commercial Real Estate, which has offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.
Requests for a statement from Garvin regarding correspondence with the Community Wellness Centers of America were unavailing. Garvin also declined comment on the state of the current negotiations taking place.
The retreat house, named “Inisfada” after the gaelic word for Long Island was built between 1916-1920 for industrialist Nicholas Brady and his wife Genevieve.
“[Genevieve] was really the motor behind the decorating of the house,” said Rev. Tom Evrard, a Jesuit administrator who had been involved with St. Ignatius for more than 20 years. “She was very meticulous. She demanded everything be of the highest grade and quality.”
The property cost $2.3 million to build and served as the Bradys’ summer home. They had residences on 5th Avenue in Manhattan as well as a villa in Rome.
Since the couple had no children, the Bradys lived at Inisfada with those they employed on the property, and as devout Catholics the couple maintained a close relationship with Vatican City officials. The couple received permission from the Vatican to place the St. Genevieve Chapel on the second floor of their home, now perceived to be the “crown jewel” of the property, Evrard said.
In 1936, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli – who would go on to become Pope Pius XII – stayed at Inisfada for three months while on tour in the United States and celebrated mass in the chapel. A portrait of his likeness hangs in the mansion’s first-floor hallway.
The Jesuit order maintained Inisfada since Genevieve Brady’s death in 1938, but high maintenance costs caused the order to sell most of the once 300-acre property, and eventually put the mansion on the housing market.
“This is a really important part of American history here, not just Long Island history,” Paolillo said. “These very wealthy people built these big country homes and the Jesuits really preserved it well, it looks just like it did 80 years ago. The architect that built it built one house in New York, so if you kill that, you kill a part of American history.”
Paolillo said the Community Wellness Centers of America is also investigating whether the Jesuits had received a permit to deconstruct the St. Genevieve Chapel, which it recently donated to Fordham University, and had begun researching the process by which Inisfada could be deemed a state landmark.
Paolillo said groups that used the retreat house, including surrounding parishes and various addiction help organizations, have joined the effort to keep Inisfada standing.
The Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations Inc. had success in preserving the Christ Episcopal Church, located at the corner of Plandome Road, when officials had found a builder to demolish it for a senior housing development.
Over a span of two years, and with the help of the Town of North Hempstead, Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations president Richard Bentley said he was able to reach a compromise that split the building’s zoning in two, restore the parish house and use its interior for commercial office space and for the church’s use.
Bentley said he would also like to keep St. Ignatius as a retreat house.
“It’s important not only to save the history of Long Island but it’s important to us that it’s not a housing development, the last thing Manhasset needs is another housing development that puts pressure on our schools, roads, traffic our infrastructure,” Bentley said. “The services the St. Ignatius retreat house currently provides are social services and spiritual services, we don’t want to lose those services for the community either and the Community Wellness Centers of America is certainly willing to continue those socio-spiritual services within the community.”
In a letter to the editor to the Manhasset Times that was addressed to Cooke, Bentley said his organization would assist in trying to achieve results similar to those at Christ Episcopal Church at St. Ignatius, though he said the process would be different.
“When minds are in need of doing something to save an architectural historic building, we are able to do it,” Bentley said.
