Oheka Castle Goes for $72 Million at Auction, About Half Its Appraised Value

Oheka Castle, the Gold Coast mansion in Huntington that Gary Melius rescued from ruin four decades ago, is going to new owners for about half of what it was appraised at last year. The winning bid at a court-ordered auction on Tuesday was $72 million, and it came from Paul Alflen and Ronald Browning, partners in a Long Island company called Gold Coast Property & Estate Management.

Seven bidders competed in the sale, which was run by Concierge Auctions and the Modlin Group, a luxury brokerage, and took place at the Dominick, a Manhattan hotel. The buyers also owe a premium on top of the hammer price.

Alflen said the plan is to leave the landmark largely alone. "We are very excited, we are going to keep the castle as is," he said. "This is a magical piece. I think we are going to make it more beautiful."

The size of the discount is what stands out. An appraisal done in 2025 as part of the bankruptcy case valued the estate at $137 million.

Melius was not the one selling. The seller was Taconic Capital Advisors, the investment firm that had bought up the estate's unpaid mortgage debt. Taconic came into the room with a court-approved credit of roughly $61 million, the amount it said it was owed, which meant any rival had to start above that figure. Bidding climbed from there until it stopped at $72 million.

The auction ended a long fight over the property. Oheka spent more than a decade in foreclosure. Last year Melius put the company that holds the estate into Chapter 11, a move meant to keep the castle out of a sale. In the end, the judge let the foreclosure auction proceed.

Melius paid $1.5 million for the abandoned, crumbling estate in 1984, then poured tens of millions of dollars into bringing it back. He described the result as bittersweet. "I'm very happy for the outcome, and sad for me, but it's the best I could have asked for," he said.

What the buyers get is more than a wedding hall. The sale carries Huntington's green light to build 95 condominium units on roughly five acres of the grounds. Some neighbors have already raised concerns about the condos, and a local civic leader said residents would rather see the castle pay its own way without more construction.

For now, the new owners say they intend to keep the castle open and running as an event venue.

The house ranks among the largest private homes in the United States, with more than 120 rooms. It was built about a century ago for the banker Otto Kahn. After Kahn, the house passed through other uses, including a stretch as a military academy, and it had fallen into ruin by the time Melius arrived. Under Melius it became one of the region's most famous wedding settings and a backdrop for film and television. Kevin Jonas was married there, and so was former congressman Anthony Weiner. Taylor Swift used the grounds for her music video "Blank Space," and the estate's screen credits run from "Citizen Kane" to the HBO drama "Succession."

The new owners are not getting everything that once surrounded the house. Last December, Taconic separately bought a 13.3-acre parcel next to the estate that is slated for development, and that land was not part of Tuesday's sale. Kahn's estate once stretched across what is now a golf course and a neighborhood of single-family homes.

The deal still needed a federal bankruptcy judge's sign-off, and a hearing on confirming the sale to Alflen and Browning was set for Thursday.