Gold Coast mansion, used for Taylor Swift video, sells for $8.25 million

A Glen Cove mansion that was once the home of five-and-dime store magnate F.W. Woolworth has sold for $8.25 million, according to data from OneKey MLS.

The home, known as Winfield Hall, sits on more than 16 acres and spans 30,000 square feet with an additional 17,000-square-foot carriage house on the property. It was owned by the late Martin T. Carey, brother of the late former New York governor Hugh Carey.

More recently the mansion has been used in the music video for Taylor Swift’s "Blank Space" and the HBO dramas "Boardwalk Empire" and "Mildred Pierce."

"I think the city [of Glen Cove] is very excited to have somebody finally living in it and renovating it," said Margaret Trautmann, an associate broker at Compass Real Estate in Locust Valley, who represented the seller.

Prominent features of the house, built in 1915, include its marble staircase, cathedral ceilings, formal dining room with a fireplace and intricate woodwork, library and solarium. It has 12 bedrooms and nine full bathrooms. Woolworth, founder of the discount retail chain, had the house built before his death in 1919. The marble staircase alone reportedly cost $2 million at the time of its construction.

"I’ve never gotten so many hits in my life from this one listing," Trautmann said. She said she received inquiries from around the country and as far away as Australia and got several offers.

The house sold for about 17.5% less than its listing price of $9.995 million. An auction last July had set the starting price at $7 million but didn’t yield a buyer.

Of course, there’s also the cost of maintaining a century-old home and the property’s $250,000 annual property tax bill, according to a listing for the property.

The seller was Denise Carey Bettencourt, the daughter of Martin Carey, who had purchased the site in 1977.

Information on the buyer wasn’t immediately available. Marianne Carey, a real estate agent with M. Wein Realty on Shelter Island, was the buyer's agent. Carey, who is a cousin of the seller, declined to provide details about the sale before speaking with the buyer.

Martin Carey, who died in June 2020, owned a maritime petroleum shipping business as well as real estate and a chain of gas service stations on Long Island, according to a 1975 profile in The New York Times. Carey, along with his wife Millicent, preserved the Gilded Age mansion Seaview Terrace in Newport, R.I., and another in Lloyd Harbor.

A fire in January 2015 damaged a wing of Winfield Hall with 150 firefighters from 10 departments responding to fight the blaze.

"Everything’s been repaired," Trautmann said. "Since no one has really lived in the house, I had to have everybody do their due diligence before they even bid and go to the city [of Glen Cove] to find out what they could or couldn’t do."

Trautmann said she had previously listed the home in 2002 and 2006 for around $20 million, but despite receiving several offers, the Carey family decided not to sell at the time. The new sale price was a sign to her that fewer buyers are willing to pay eight figures to live in homes like Winfield Hall.

Buyers today "don’t want to take care of anything like this — let alone the property that’s there," Trautmann said. "They’d rather have two houses instead or new houses."

By Jonathan LaMantia

jonathan.lamantia@newsday.com@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.