Inside the $45 Million Long Island Estate That Was Turned Into a Cult Compound
"GOOD CONTENT"#architecture #castle
In this video, we explore Idle Hour, the Vanderbilt family's 110-room country mansion on Long Island's South Shore, which was rebuilt after a fire as one of the grandest houses in America, then sold off cheaply and turned into the headquarters of a cult that tried to raise an immortal baby.
In 1878, William Kissam Vanderbilt and his wife, Alva, began building a country retreat at Oakdale, on the Connetquot River. The architect Richard Morris Hunt designed a rambling 110-room wooden house, completed in 1882, at the heart of an estate of about 900 acres. They called it Idle Hour.
It became the family's escape from New York society. In 1899 William's son, Willie K. Vanderbilt II, chose it for his honeymoon with his new bride, Virginia Fair.
On April 15, 1899, while the newlyweds were staying there, Idle Hour caught fire. The couple escaped, but the wooden mansion was destroyed.
William Vanderbilt rebuilt on an even grander scale. Hunt's son, Richard Howland Hunt, designed a new house of red brick and grey stone in the English country style, completed in 1901 at a reported cost of $3 million.
The new Idle Hour again had 110 rooms, with around 45 bathrooms. Its showpieces included a ballroom with a ceiling of 24-karat gold leaf, a carved Caen stone stair hall, an oak-panelled library brought from a French chateau, a glass Palm Court and, by some accounts, a garage large enough for 100 cars.
When William K. Vanderbilt died in 1920, he left Idle Hour to his younger son, Harold. For the probate valuation, the property was put at just $650,000, and Harold struggled to find a buyer. In 1921 he sold it for $460,521, a fraction of what it had cost to build.
The age of great country houses was ending. In 1926 the mansion, stables and about 26 acres became the Idle Hour Artists Community, a bohemian colony whose members turned farm buildings into studios. It did not last, and by the late 1930s the house had stood neglected for years.
Then, in January 1938, it was bought by one of the strangest organisations in America, the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Its leader, James Bernard Schafer, known to his followers as the Messenger, reportedly paid $350,000, raised through what the group called Love Gifts from his disciples.
The Fraternity claimed thousands of followers, most of them middle-aged women. Time magazine described its creed as a theological goulash of Rosicrucianism, Christian Science, faith healing and self-help. Schafer renamed the mansion Peace Haven, and about 100 members moved in. At the dedication, around 500 followers crowded into the reception hall.
Peace Haven was run as a retreat for those who bought a fellowship, which cost $100 at first and $500 by the end of 1940. But the group's most notorious project began in November 1939, when Schafer announced that he would raise a baby girl to live forever.
The child, known as Baby Jean, was the daughter of a struggling waitress named Catherine Gauntt. At Peace Haven she was to be raised on metaphysics and a special vegetable diet, and the group intended that she would one day become its immortal leader.
The experiment collapsed. In December 1940 the baby was returned to her parents, and her mother later sued. Lawsuits and allegations of theft and tax fraud followed, and New York's Attorney General brought grand larceny charges against Schafer.
On March 24, 1942, Schafer pleaded guilty, and in May he was sent to Sing Sing prison for a term of at least five years. Peace Haven was foreclosed and auctioned off. In 1955, Schafer and his wife were found dead in their car, leaving a note saying they had no other way out.
Idle Hour found a new life in education. Adelphi College bought the estate in 1963, and in 1968 it became the campus of Dowling College. A fire in 1974 destroyed many of the original interiors, but the mansion was restored and used for classrooms and offices for decades.
In 2016 Dowling College closed, and the campus was sold in bankruptcy to Mercury International. The mansion has stood largely empty since, suffering vandalism, and in 2026 the 25-acre waterfront site was offered for sale once again. A local landmark designation means the house cannot be torn down.
It is the story of a Vanderbilt palace that burned, was rebuilt, sold for a fraction of its cost, and became the setting for one of the strangest cults in American history.
Subscribe to Old Money Mansions for the stories behind extraordinary houses, inherited fortunes, and the families whose lives shaped them. Share your thoughts in the comments: what should happen to Idle Hour next?