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Oheka Castle sells at auction for $72 million; Gary Melius stays on to run it

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Oheka Castle, exterior with forecourt fountain

Huntington, N.Y., October 27, 2026. Oheka Castle, the 127-room Otto Kahn estate on Long Island’s Gold Coast, sold at a live auction in New York City today for $72 million plus the buyer’s premium. Concierge Auctions, which ran the sale at The Dominick hotel in Manhattan, said seven bidders took part after more than 740 prospective buyers from around the world had expressed interest. The sale is pending until closing.

The winning bid came from Ronald Browning and Paul Alflen, through a company named Gold Coast Property & Estate Management, according to Long Island Business News. Alflen told the paper that they intend to preserve the castle.

Good news for Oheka: Gary Melius stays

For anyone who cares about this house, the best part of today’s news is who is not leaving. Gary Melius, who bought Oheka as a windowless, roofless ruin in 1984 and spent more than four decades and some $40 million bringing it back, told Newsday that the sale clears his debts and that he plans to go on living at Oheka and managing the property. Melius, 83, is the reason the castle exists at all: the new slate roof, the 222 remade windows and doors, the restored staircase, library and ballroom, and the Olmsted gardens rebuilt from the original drawings were all his doing. The castle remains fully open as a hotel, restaurant and wedding and event venue, and its tours continue.

Reports also note that a 95-unit condominium project on the grounds already holds approvals, which gives the new owners a path to carry the estate’s costs without touching the house itself.

How Oheka got here

The castle’s ownership company, Kahn Property Owner LLC, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the summer of 2025 after years of foreclosure proceedings, and the bankruptcy court approved a sale by auction. The house itself was never at risk of closing: weddings, hotel stays and tours ran through the whole process, and any buyer had to honor the events already on the books.

Oheka was built between 1914 and 1917 for the banker Otto Hermann Kahn, to designs by Delano & Aldrich, and is the second-largest private house ever built in the United States. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004. Read the full history of Oheka Castle, including the restoration, on its page here.

We will update this report as the sale closes and the new owners say more about their plans.

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