The owner of a Gold Coast mansion in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, was reportedly shot at the estate today. Newsday reports that a "high-level law enforcement source" said that Gary Melius, who turned Oheka Castle into a high-end hotel and catering hall was shot today.
While the Suffolk County Police have not confirmed that Melius was shot, an assistant to former Senator Alfonse D'Amato, who is friends with Melius, said, "He's stable and alert. Family is with him." The suspect apparently fled the castle. Newsday adds: "Multiple Suffolk County police cars were at the scene, with one of them blocking the entrance to the catering hall. Police dogs were scouring the grounds."
Melius, 69, lives at the castle, which bought it in 1984 when it was very rundown. According to the estate's website:
Almost a century ago, financier and philanthropist Otto Hermann Kahn built OHEKA CASTLE in the middle of a 443 acre plot on the highest point on Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor, for an estimated cost of $11 million dollars ($110 million dollars in today’s currency). At the time of its construction, the French-style chateau was, and still is today, the second-largest private residence ever built in America. During the Gilded Age of the 1920’s, Kahn used the 109,000 square foot, 127 room estate as a summer home where he hosted lavish parties and regularly entertained royalty, heads of state, and Hollywood stars.
After Otto Kahn died in 1934, the estate changed hands several times, serving as a retreat for New York sanitation workers, and a government training school for Merchant Marine radio operators. In 1948, the Eastern Military Academy bought OHEKA, bulldozed the gardens, subdivided the rooms and painted over the walls. After the school went bankrupt 30 years later, OHEKA stood abandoned, except by vandals who set numerous fires over 5 years.
Many films and TV shows have been shot there, including Citizen Kane. In recent years, one of the Jonas brothers got married there.
