Castle Gould

Howard Gould (1871 to 1959), a son of the financier Jay Gould, married the actress Kathrine Clemmons in 1898. While traveling in Ireland the couple admired Kilkenny Castle and decided to build a larger version on Long Island. In 1900 Gould bought about 350 acres at the northern end of the Cow Neck peninsula at Sands Point, assembled from land held by several old local families, including the Motts, Hicks and Burdetts.

In 1901 Gould sent the architect Abner J. Haydel to Ireland to study Kilkenny Castle and design the main house, which the couple called Castlegould. Meanwhile the New York architect Augustus N. Allen laid out the estate, with a site plan completed in 1902, and designed its service buildings in the same castle manner. The National Register nomination lists Allen as architect of the stable complex, as does the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, although one passage of the same nomination credits Haydel with the stables. By late 1902 the foundations of the stable, said to cover half a city block, were in place. The Conservancy dates its completion to 1904 on one page and to 1902 on another.

The result is a granite complex of two to four stories with crenellated parapets and a large drum-shaped clock tower set on a diagonal between a U-shaped stable wing and a carriage wing. The stable wing held stalls for 50 horses, wash rooms, tack rooms and estate offices, and the carriage wing had three vaulted rooms for carriages and automobiles. The vaults are of Guastavino tile. The Conservancy describes the building as about 100,000 square feet.

The main house was never built to Haydel's design. In 1904 the Goulds sued Haydel for breach of contract and he countersued, and in 1909 the marriage ended in divorce. Gould then had Hunt and Hunt design a Tudor-style manor house, which Daniel Guggenheim later named Hempstead House. In 1917 Gould sold the estate, with its buildings and the contents of the house, to Guggenheim for $600,000.

In 1942 Florence Guggenheim, Daniel's widow, gave 162 acres, including Hempstead House and Castle Gould, to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. The Navy bought the site in 1946 for its Naval Training Device Center and converted the stable complex to offices and laboratories. After the Navy moved the center to Orlando in 1967, Nassau County acquired the property in 1971 and joined it with Falaise, which Harry Guggenheim left to the county the same year, to form Sands Point Preserve. The county has used Castle Gould since 1973 as a museum, education center and administrative building. The estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 as the Gould-Guggenheim Estate.

Today the 216-acre preserve is managed for the county by the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy. Castle Gould holds the Welcome Center and gift shop, a renovated Great Hall used for classes, programs and private events, and a 7,000-square-foot sound stage. It is not open for tours. The preserve is open Wednesday through Sunday, and admission is $15 per car or $4 per walk-in visitor.