02/01/10
Tags: guilded age, historic homes, ruins, thousand islands
Fixer Upper on Downers
Carleton Island Villa (Carleton Island, NY) looks so tragically beyond repair, that I can’t imagine who would buy it. Not me. Stop looking at me, you sad, beautiful old house. Built as a summer residence in 1894 for W.O. Wykoff (Remingon Typewriter tycoon), the home was designed by architect William Miller and had over 50 rooms, a crypt-like cellar, grand halls, libraries, and parlors. But with no inhabitants for over 60 years, this fixer upper is a downer. Creepily, Wykoff himself never even inhabited the villa, save one day. He died July 7, 1895, his very first night in his new home, of a heart attack.
Listed at $495,000 and “in need of major restoration.”
It reminds me a bit of another tragic ruin of the Gilded Age, Bannerman Castle.
