Islip to try again to preserve Oakdale's Idle Hour mansion

Islip Town officials say they plan to take a second stab at protecting Oakdale's iconic Idle Hour mansion after residents raised questions in recent weeks about whether a 2018 town law intended to place the estate in a historic preservation district was properly enacted.

Supervisor Angie Carpenter last week told residents of the South Shore hamlet that the town board plans to vote as soon as Tuesday on a new resolution that would ensure the century-old Vanderbilt estate, the centerpiece of the shuttered Dowling College campus, is not demolished by its current or future owners. She said the new law would reaffirm the 2018 resolution, which established a preservation zone at the former Dowling site requiring additional town approvals before the mansion and other historic sites could be altered.

Residents first raised concerns about preserving the mansion after Dowling declared bankruptcy and closed in 2016, following years of mounting debt and declining enrollment. A year later, the 25-acre campus was purchased out of bankruptcy auction for $26.1 million by Delaware-based Mercury International.

Though town and Mercury officials say the mansion never has been in danger of being torn down, many residents became alarmed in recent weeks that the legal protections they thought were on the books — including covenants and restrictions dictating approved and unapproved uses of the site — do not appear in town maps and zoning records. 

Christopher Como, a title examiner in the Suffolk County Clerk's office, said the covenants and restrictions were not on file. He said such documents typically are provided to the county clerk by property owners.

Preservation law not in town records

Carpenter could not explain why town records don't reflect passage of the law, which created a Planned Landmark Protection overlay district to preserve the estate. An overlay district is a way of adding zoning restrictions without changing a property's underlying zoning. The Islip Town Board voted 5-0 on Nov. 29, 2018, to approve the district and covenants.

Carpenter said Mercury officials were legally responsible for filing the covenants and restrictions with the county clerk. A text of the law provided by Islip officials states that the covenants and restrictions "shall be recorded in the Suffolk County Clerk’s Office by the applicant," referring to Mercury.

“They [Mercury] had agreed to having that overlay district,” Carpenter told about 70 residents at an Oct. 9 meeting of the Oakdale Civic Association. “And the town approved it unanimously and there was no reason to expect that they didn’t take the next steps to file the documents.”

Besides the mansion, the 2018 law ordered the preservation of Dowling's former performing arts center, a historic water well and a mature weeping beech tree on campus known to local residents as Love Tree.

Don Cook of Huntington, a Mercury property manager who cares for the estate, disputed Carpenter's assertion that the company should have filed the paperwork, adding he had assumed the town had filed the documents.

He said on Oct. 9 that he and Islip officials are discussing a resolution of the matter, but he declined to discuss details. 

“My understanding was that it was complete,” Cook said, adding Mercury has no plans to demolish the structure. “I don’t believe that was ever the intent."

Residents: 'It's so frustrating'

Carpenter told residents at the civic meeting, held at the West Sayville fire house, that a letter was sent to Mercury officials and the town board plans to pass another resolution establishing the preservation overlay zone at the next board meeting on Tuesday. 

Oakdale residents are divided over whom to blame for the landmark preservation flap.

Mike Burke, 50, an information technology consultant, said he contacted Carpenter last month about the issue. The supervisor told him, in an email he shared with Newsday, that she believed Mercury should have filed paperwork with the county. But Burke said he thinks Islip officials should have ensured the necessary paperwork was filed and included in town records.

"It's so frustrating ... because now there’s no protection on that at all,” Burke said Oct. 6 in an interview. 

“The town dropped the ball here. There’s no way around that," Burke said. "Their resolution means nothing. Does a five-member town board have no say?”

Oakdale Civic Association president David Chan, 63, said he and other community members met with Islip Town Attorney Michael Walsh and Assistant Town Attorney Will Garbarino a few weeks ago after a resident discovered the issues with the overlay zone.

“Basically, [Walsh and Garbarino] told us the same thing we all knew — that it [the overlay district law] doesn’t exist," Chan said in an interview. "And then they told us they were in the process of working on something. ... They’re saying they’re close to something. What close means, they didn’t define that. I think we all hope it means that something tangible is going to happen real soon.” 

Dowling property's future uncertain

The former Dowling site has been vacant since the college closed, leaving many Oakdale residents with doubts about its future.

Mercury had announced plans in 2018 to develop an educational institution at the campus, but has never filed formal plans with Islip.

Oakdale residents have raised concerns about security and property management. Suffolk police in recent months have charged several people in connection with break-ins and vandalism at buildings on the campus.

Suffolk Legis. Anthony Piccirillo (R-Holtsville) in June launched an effort for the county to buy the property and preserve Idle Hour. Mercury officials did not respond, he said last week. 

Mercury, originally a subsidiary of NCF Capital Inc., an investment holding company registered in the Cayman Islands, now is owned by Beijing-based China Orient Asset Management Co. Ltd.

A phone number listed for China Orient in Manhattan has been disconnected. 

Steps to seeking preservation status

Town board resolutions typically start with a motion, or proposal, from a member of the board. They may face public hearings and environmental reviews before the board votes to approve, defeat or table the motion.

Oakdale residents in 2018 had asked Islip officials to enact legal protection for the mansion when they became concerned that Mercury officials, in an initial presentation to the town board about the company's plans, did not mention preserving the mansion. 

Planned landmark preservation districts, or PLPs, are commonly used to preserve historic areas such as downtowns or neighborhoods with large numbers of old houses.

Owners of properties in such districts are required to seek additional approvals from the town or village before they can modify or tear down aging buildings. 

There are two other PLPs in Islip, according to town records — Sagtikos Manor in Bay Shore and the Artists Colony in Oakdale. 

“Different municipalities take different approaches towards historic preservation. Most of the time, you wind up landmarking an individual building. Sometimes you can landmark certain types of areas because of the character, like downtowns,” said Tom McKevitt (R-East Meadow), a municipal law expert and Nassau County legislator.

“Essentially what those zones do is say you can’t do anything to the exteriors of these buildings or change the layout of the sites of these properties unless the town gives you permission,” he added. “Generally, you’re allowed to do things on the inside, but the purpose is to make sure the outside has a historically aesthetic, pleasing type of appearance.”

Civic group hopeful town will resolve issue

In an interview after the civic association meeting, Carpenter defended the town, saying officials had done everything necessary five years ago to enact the landmark preservation law.

Stephen Kiely, who is town attorney for Shelter Island and reviewed Islip’s resolution at Newsday’s request, said the 2018 zoning designation would not be in effect because the language of the resolution lists the covenants and restrictions as a condition of approval.

McKevitt said there could be an issue with implementation of the 2018 law because, according to Islip town code, if building permits were not obtained within two years of the rezoning, or the covenants and restrictions were not recorded within 180 days, the rezoning would be null and void.

Carpenter initially said the law was still in effect, but later clarified that although the change of zone application had been approved unanimously, the zoning became null and void due to the property owner's failing to file the covenants and restrictions with the county clerk. 

She also pointed out that Mercury could not demolish the mansion without a town permit, which would also require a public hearing.

“Regardless of whether it's filed or not, it was determined by resolution back in 2018 that these particular buildings on the property, including the Love Tree, are preserved, or within that preservation district designation,” Carpenter said.

Maryann Almes, president of the Oakdale Historical Society, said that while it’s “horrible” that the overlay designation was not finalized, she was hopeful town officials would resolve the problem. 

“The only way I feel I have a chance of getting it back on [file] is to let the town do their thing,” she said.