Owning a Gilded Age clock tower, beachside 'watching post,' other tower houses on Long Island

Up a herringbone-patterned brick driveway, a stucco-surfaced tower stands like a rook on a chessboard. Crowned with battlements, the edifice doubles as the entryway to a three-bedroom house in Great River.

"My granddaughter, who's 12, said, 'I tell my friends that my grandparents live in a castle, but they don't believe me,' " said Francesca Czynski, who owns the home with her husband, Lu.

The O'Connell Court house, listed in October for $1.4 million, stands out within the cul-de-sac; but the 0.49-acre residential parcel is not the only Long Island property with a tower adapted to modern-day use.

Homes with towers have generated interest and curiosity, real estate agents said; and properties with towers have elicited mixed reactions from prospective buyers. In two cases, spouses who bought homes with these features admitted they did not initially agree that a tower house was for them; but they moved in anyway.

Not quite Cinderella's castle in Great River

The O'Connell Court home is identified as "a stucco carriage house with water tower and superintendent's residence" on a building-structure inventory form filed by the Town of Islip in 1977. At the time, according to the form, the water tower had a cistern — a water storage tank — and battlements. Battlements, often seen on castles or other defensive structures, are evenly spaced ridges that offer holes through which to shoot, or walls behind which to take cover.

The form includes neither a build year nor the names of the architect and builder.

"It's not Cinderella's castle with the pointy tops," said listing agent Colleen Colasacco; but it is "romantic, whimsical."

Double doors at the base of the tower lead into the three-bedroom, 3½-bathroom house. Taxes on the property, which falls within the East Islip Union Free School District, total $20,360.

On its exterior, the house is a "bit of a step back in time," said Colasacco, of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty.

"But then, when you walk in, it's just this beautiful, elegant, luxurious great room that is an inviting living room and dining area," Colasacco said.

Before they bought the house in 2013, Francesca was unsure it made sense to trade a 1950s ranch in Great Neck for a house with a tower. Lu, though, saw the tower as a reason to make the move, and his wife came around to the idea.

"When we saw this house, we knew that we always loved very unique houses," she said. "And, this was certainly unique."

Among the castle-like details of the main house are a Juliet balcony and backlit stained-glass panels. A stone fireplace sits about halfway between the stained-glass panels.

In the tower, a narrow spiral staircase takes visitors from the second-floor bedroom to a tower room currently set up as another bedroom. From the tower room, another spiral staircase leads to the top of the structure, Colasacco said.

"You can stand there, and there are flagpoles so if you want to, you know, hang your family crest or some sort of celebration flag, you can put it up there," Colasacco said.

When the Czynskis made the purchase, they had unknowingly taken on a project. The home did not have central air conditioning, and the aesthetic was darker than it is now.

Bit by bit, the pair renovated the house — the kitchen, the great room, the bathrooms. The sunroom, once enclosed by dark wood, now has white walls.

"It had bones, but more importantly, Fran had the vision," Lu said.

Today the house has a geothermal heating and cooling system installed by the current owners, Colasacco said.

"It's a really energy-efficient house, which I never would've thought," she added.

The property also has a cottage with an unfinished basement. In the yard, there are stone busts with an unknown history — a detail Colasacco said adds to the "fairytale, storybook mystique of the house" — and a koi pond.

"It just makes me want to live a simpler life," Colasacco said. "But then on the other hand, it has all the modern stuff."

Gilded Age relic in Glen Cove

Textured and patinated, the sea glass-green cap of clock tower is just barely visible over an unassuming home on Ellen Court in Glen Cove.

The backyard clock tower, made largely of brick and metal, was once the centerpiece of the Pratt compound — a group of mansions that belonged to the family of Standard Oil co-founder Charles Pratt, according to listing agent Patrick Hall.

Eventually, the family did build on the land, Hall said. Photographs show the clock tower surrounded by a building. Today, the tower stands alone, just beyond a rectangular swimming pool.

"It was the administration building for the seven estates that are up here, that are still active, Pratt estates," Hall said.

Described in a May 1891 New York Times obituary as "short and stout, with a very broad pair of shoulders and a sharp, pointed face," Charles Pratt also founded the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Approximately a year before his death, Pratt had purchased "several thousand acres of land near Glen Cove, L.I., with the intention of building there, but he never carried out this intention," the Times article said.

When Jianming Shen and his wife, Heting Chu, bought the house about nine years ago, they, too, had opposing opinions about the clock tower that came with it. Accessible via ladder and a weighted, attic-style door, the tower appealed to Shen.

"In my view, the best value of this is the view, not usage of it," Shen said. "I can see it every day."

Chu saw the need for an additional inspection, and maintenance; but Shen saw its appeal. In winter, snow blankets the tower's cap and the trees that flank the structure. Some years, Shen has affixed white lights to the railing at the top of the tower.

"I love it more than she does," he said.

But she sees the value in it now — both the view of it, and from it.

"Each time we have contractors here, the first thing they will say, 'What's that?'" Chu said. "And the next, 'Can I go up?' "

As they prepare to move out of state to be closer to their daughter, the couple has put the house on the market. Listed for $1,649,999, the five-bed, 4½-bath house and detached clock tower sit on a 0.66-acre property. Taxes on the property total $23,248.

"I would say half the people that came to see the house just wanted to see the clock tower," Hall said.

A Fire Island 'watching post'

It took fewer than 90 days for BrookHampton Realty agent Kevin Loiacono to sell a Fire Island home with a lighthouse-shaped tower, he said.

When it went into contract in early October, the three-bed, three-bath house was listed for $1.675 million.

"Being that it was an oceanfront property, that's the thing that caught most people's attention first," he said.

The "unique architecture" then provoked questions, he said. 

In August, Loiacono described the tower as "a watching post" with thermal windows. The tower is made of the original wood, he said at the time.

Marty and Shelly Chinitz have owned the home since 1984, they told Newsday in August. Marty described sunset cocktails and dinners that would last three hours. Once, he said, 16 people climbed the ladder to the tower amid a house party of more than 300 guests. Just two people fit comfortably in the tower, he said.

"Everybody was enjoying looking at that 360-degree view," Chinitz said.

From the 104-square-foot space, guests can see the Atlantic Ocean and Great South Bay, he said.

In selling the home, Loiacono said prospective buyers were particularly interested in the vantage point.

"People were curious about the house history, but they were curious about the view — you know, what can I see from there?" Loiacono said.

Though the tower is not finished as a room in the house might be, Loiacono said the owner had reading chairs in the space. In stormy weather and otherwise, he said, the homeowner would spend time up there.

"That was really what it was for," Loiacono said. "It has very much a lighthouse feel, but it's not a lighthouse."

Excluding the tower, the 1,416-square-foot home has two levels. On the main level, there is an open-concept living and dining area, a kitchen and a bathroom. On the second level, there are three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a laundry room.

According to property records, the house was built in 1959.

Loiacono said he was surprised at the positive feedback he got about the uniqueness of the house.

"If you stuck that in the middle of a neighborhood, people would think it would be odd," he said. "But it was in the right setting."