OLD WESTBURY ; 'THE CROSSROADS'. What an opportunity awaits you! One of the few remaining grand estates from Long Islands fabled Gilded Age is now on the market. Deep in the heart of Old Westbury, this grand manor sits on the remaining 8.5-acres of its original owners 50+-acre estate and includes wo gated entries, fifteen bedrooms, eighteen baths, three powder rooms, three kitchens, two pools, seventeen fireplaces, formal gardens, guest house, cottages, and five walled courtyards. So stunning was its ten-year transformation from a Nineteenth Century colonial farmhouse into a glistening five-wing Georgian mansion ready for all the roaring social life of the 1920s, that it was featured in The House Beautiful Magazine, in 1921. Less than a mile up the road from his first cousin, Margarita Grace, and her husband, John S. Phipps in their newly built home (known today as Old Westbury Gardens) Crosswoods owner, William Russel Grace, Jr. was also heir to a family fortune. His father, two-term mayor of New York City, with his brother, founded Grace Shipping Company that grew into a huge conglomerate of shipping, chemical, oil, real estate, and banking companies. Mr. Grace, Jr. was a director of the company, vice president of a subsidiary, Ingersol-Rand, and director of the Grace Institute, a vocational school for women. He was married to Elise Wall Grace, and they had three daughters. One of Grace, Jr.s favorite pastimes was chasing the hounds, which fueled his plans for Gracewood. He hired noted architect, James OConnor, around 1910 to transform his recently purchased Nineteenth-Century farmstead into a grand estate and to include stables, paddocks, an indoor squash court and a 120-foot indoor riding academy to be attached to the house. A few years later, he had him add on another wing - a sunken indoor tennis court with adjoining clubhouse and guest house. He hired well-known landscape architects, Innocenti and Webel, to design formal gardens, patios, pools, and an allée of graceful ancient trees for the estate. Finished in 1919, all was ready for Grace and his wife to start entertaining on a large scale. Can you imagine driving out from the city in your new roadster to attend the first weekend soirée at Crossroads? As you approach, the house seems endless stretching to the left over 200 feet, and to the right, nearly 300 feet. You drive through a porta cochere into a cobblestone courtyard, and you discover three wings enfolded by several courtyards, a veritable compound designed for having fun. As you are escorted to your first-floor guest suite, you hear Mozarts Concerto 27 wafting down the entry hall. Following it, you discover the spacious and exquisitely appointed music room where friends are enjoying a guest performance by a noted pianist. You are told cocktails will be served by the pool at five and dinner at seven, fox hunt in the morning and observing a tennis match by local sportsmen in the afternoon, you can also stroll the gardens, enjoy quiet conversation in the library, play cards in the reception hall, or have a game of squash (or today, handball). (In this day and age, you also have the option to hop in your car and enjoy shopping at the high-end Americana outdoor mall, quaint village shops, casual or fine dining, golfing horseback riding, boating, beaches, concerts and more just a short drive away. You also can commute to the city or grab a plane about an hour away.) Today, Crossroads displays much of its original 1920s features. Its unique floor plan, and elegant charm are ready for you, a lover of gracious living and the Gold Coasts rich history, to bring it into the Twenty-First Century while keeping its 100-year-old allure - from its hidden doors, secret passages, exquisite millwork, original wide-plank floors (as seen), and eclectic windows from several English eras. With the additions added over the years, the floor plan makes the manor exceptional. It is a compound of sorts except all buildings are connected as wings of one structure via hallways and courtyards. From the air, it looks like a giant E. Entered through the porta cochere, the main courtyard brings guests to the front entrance, which is in the south wing that was built around the original farmhouse. Here, an entry hall runs east and west from the foyer with a powder room, coat room, and two guest rooms with ensuite baths. At the west end, two guest suites, with baths ensuite and private access to the porta cochere, share a foyer with the palatial music room that enjoys an elegant fireplace, coffered oak paneling, English-style casement windows, and east and west ornate Georgian porches. To the east of the entry hall, you will enter the spacious and inviting library with massive carved-stone fireplace and a huge bay window overlooking an enclosed garden to the north. To the south, an expansive solarium opens to another garden with pool. In Graces day, this area was a grand southern Georgian-style entrance with soaring pillared portico and wide steps overlooking the pool and lawns a majestic site to those entering the estate. Further east in this wing, a foyer leads to a cozy den and a spacious reception room, with fireplace, that opens into the dining hall. This magnificent banquet space offers fielded-panel oak walls, equally impressive fireplace, French doors at one end, and windowed alcove at the other. A large butlers pantry opens into the east wing housing a breakfast room, two powder rooms, back stairs, a huge kitchen, and access to the staff courtyard.In the west wing, a doorway welcomes guests from the porta cochere into a lounge for the ballroom with his and her bathrooms and access to the squash/paddle ball court on the west, and the 120-foot-long ballroom with wood floors, an impressive open beam cathedral ceiling, a kitchen, and access to the main courtyard to the south and the pub courtyard to the north. The sunny Hall of Flowers takes you to the historic sunken, clay tennis court with windowed walls and roof flooding the room with sunlight and breezes. An archway on the lower level and a balcony on the upper level of the adjoining clubhouse/pub provides comfortable places for spectators to enjoy the game. The clubhouse also includes a mens lounge with full bath and a ladys lounge with powder room, and the pub. The courtyard accesses the ballrooms kitchen and another courtyard leading to the guest house with 3-4 bedrooms and 2-and-a half-baths, kitchen and gathering room.The second floor of the house begins with staff quarters, laundry and storage rooms in the east wing and part of the south wing, the palatial master suite with master bath, dressing room, romantic fireplace, walk-in closet, and private stairs. The remainder of the south wing is filled with a kitchen, sauna, dressing room, three bedrooms, and three baths. Around the corner in the west wing, there are five more bedrooms, three baths, and stairs down to the paddle-ball room and ballroom. All bedrooms but those in the staff area have fireplaces.
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