Knollwood

Charles I. Hudson, a New York stockbroker, built Knollwood on high ground in Muttontown in the early twentieth century. His architects were Hiss and Weekes, a New York firm better known for hotels and apartment buildings, and the grounds have been credited to the landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale. Sources place construction anywhere from 1906 to 1920, with 1910 also given. Nassau County describes the house as a 60-room granite mansion, and early photographs show a classical stone house with columns and balustrades above terraced gardens. The estate's size is given as 150, 260 or 270 acres, depending on the source and the date.

After the Hudsons sold the house, it passed through several owners. In 1951 King Zog I, the exiled ruler of Albania, bought it for about $102,800. Zog had led Albania as president and then as king until Italy invaded in 1939, and he hoped to settle at Knollwood with more than 100 retainers and their families. Immigration authorities would admit only 35 of them, the move was delayed, and Zog never lived in the house. By 1952 he had paid Nassau County $2,914 in taxes after failing to persuade it that a monarch was exempt. Rumors that he had hidden treasure in the walls drew vandals, who did heavy damage to the empty building.

Zog sold the estate in 1955 to Lansdell Christie, and the Christie family had the mansion demolished in 1959. Nassau County later bought about 400 acres from the Lansdell Christie estate. That land became part of the 550-acre Muttontown Preserve, the county's largest nature preserve, which also includes the Chelsea estate, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and land given by Mrs. Paul Hammond.

What survives of Knollwood is a set of ruins in the woods just north of Muttontown Road. The most substantial piece is the double staircase that once led up to the house, with an alcove on each side and the remains of a fountain where the stairs meet. Terrace walls, broken balustrades and a brick patio edge can be traced through the undergrowth, and a row of tall trees still marks the old approach to the garden stairs. The estate's stone gate piers stand at the northwest corner of Route 106 and Muttontown Road.

The preserve is open to the public. Visitors can park at the preserve's equestrian area off Route 106 or at the nature center on Muttontown Lane in East Norwich and walk to the ruins on the preserve trails, which are poorly marked.