Chateau Voltaire

It's been awhile since I've indulged my obsession with real estate porn on this blog, but I was reading an article in the Sunday New York Times, and I had to share it with you all. The above mansion, on Long Island's Gold Coast, was once known as Chateau Voltaire. Why because it was a section of a chateau in France, that the owner believed had been lived in by Voltaire and his mistress during the 18th century.

It's actual name is Chateau des Thons, because it's an entire wing of the actual Chateau in the Vosges area of France near Dijon. The original owner, Ashbel H. Barney, was in the market for a French chateau (aren't we all?). Back in the day, the robber barons used to travel to Europe and buy whole crateloads of paintings, furniture, interiors, for their McMansions back in the States. J.P. Morgan was notorious for that.

But that wasn't good enough for Mr. Barney. He bought an entire wing, including the green moss, and the flagstones from Les Petits Thons back to New York.

The romantic story behind Chateau des Thons is that Voltaire and his mistress one Madame du Chatelet, carried on a 16 year affair in the chateau. The affair supposedly ended when she got pregnant with a third man's child and died giving birth.

However, the true story is that Voltaire never lived in the chateau with his mistress, he lived in some other chateau. That of course, didn't stop real estate agents or Gold Coast historians from repeating the story, until it became local legend.

You can buy the mansion for the relatively bargain price of $7 million dollars. It's one of the few Gold Coast Mansion still in existence. Once upon a time, particularly during the twenties this part of Long Island was covered in huge mansions, up to 450 of them, mainly built by millionaires flush with cash from various enterprises. F. Scott Fitzgerald based Jay Gatsby's house on a mansion that was unfortunately torn down during the '60's.

Huge yachts lined the harbor, some of which were unfortunately shot to pieces by the Coast Guard who mistook them for rum runners during Prohibition (can you imagine the Coast Guard shooting up Trump's yacht or the Forbes yacht today by accident? They would have their ass sued so fast). Wild parties went on for days (P. Diddy has nothing on the revelers of the 1920's).

All that ended during the Great Depression, but if you want an idea of what life was like for the rich take a look at the mansion on Sotheby's real estate site or pick up a copy of Monica Randall's "Mansions of Long Island's Gold Coast" to have a look. Some of the mansions are still open to the public.