Oheka Castle is in bankruptcy. Does a $495 room offer luxury or is it a fading gem?

I stare up at the soaring, wishbone-shaped staircase with 22 steps on each side ... then down at my luggage.

I had just arrived for 3 p.m. check-in on a recent Tuesday at Oheka Castle in Huntington, rolling my suitcase bumpily across the cobblestone courtyard in search of the front desk.

"I don’t work here, but I’ll make you feel special," a guest had said, opening a massive wooden door for me, revealing the towering staircase.

What kind of royal treatment awaits at a sprawling castle that's played host to celebrity weddings and a Taylor Swift music video? From the lush gardens to the on-site bakery to the plush hotel rooms, the promise of luxury comes with a price: for a room, it's $495 for a weeknight stay. For Oheka's owner, Gary Melius, it's the $63.5 million owed to creditors, according to bankruptcy documents Melius filed July 31 to block a forced sale of the property that he says has been in foreclosure for 10 years. Despite the legal action, Melius and his representatives have said business will continue to operate normally at the venue. Newsday sent me on an anonymous overnight stay to see if that’s the case.

I had come in through the back entrance (a common GPS issue, I later learn), so I'd missed the storybook arched gates and long gravel driveway that would have announced my arrival.

"You don't need help with your suitcase, do you?" the woman at the check-in desk asks. Despite the 22 steps to the elevator...

It's not an auspicious start to my stay. But everything changes when I walk into in my room.

3:30 p.m.: A luxury hotel room

My $495 per night room is lovely, in a your-grandmother’s-apartment sort of way. Oheka is modeled after a French château, and the decor reflects that theme. A four-poster bed has a wood-carved headboard and six fluffy pillows. While Oheka has advertised famed Frette linens on the beds, I check and mine are actually from another luxury Italian textile company called Casarovea. A floor-to-ceiling window looks out over golfers playing at the Cold Spring Country Club golf course next door and, in the distance, I can see the waters of Cold Spring Harbor.

A Queen-Anne style desk sits in a nook on the far side of the room with magazines laid out (one is a bridal magazine from 2024, probably still there because the first page is a full-page ad for Oheka). A modern television is set on a dresser that is scratched on top, making it look distressed. The oddest part: In front of the TV, there's a single recliner with one armrest that looks like a cat might have plucked at it.

The bathroom is modern with a separate door leading to the toilet and a whirlpool bathtub. The walls near the door into the room have a visibly patched-up paint job and an outlet cover falls off when I plug in my cellphone charger. Minor transgressions.

4:30 p.m.: Exploring Oheka Castle

I wander into the Versailles-like outdoor gardens with gravel pathways, reflecting pools, statues and manicured shrubbery. Two men are sitting in a gazebo at the back of the garden — they are here to photograph a surprise engagement proposal. They open a ring box to show me a beautiful solitaire diamond. They’ve been instructed to set it in the garden on the pathway so the couple will come upon it. I ask if I can stay and watch. They hide in the bushes until the couple arrives. The groom-to-be gets on one knee and the photographers shoot the proposal with the castle in the background. I see the man drop down, I hear the woman cry out happily. I see their first kiss as an engaged couple.

Later, I learn the couple was Cynthia Federico, 25, of Hauppauge, a teacher, and Konstantinos Koukounas, 24, of Aquebogue, an estimator for a marine construction company. I also learn there is a required cost of $2,500 to have professional engagement photos taken on the castle grounds — that fee includes the photographer, two hours to take pictures and the digital photos.

5:15 p.m.: Happy hour

I sit in the bar, checking out the hotel’s Gatsby Hour happy hour scene.

"My daughter just got engaged. The whole family is arriving soon," said the bride-to-be's mother, Rosa Federico. "She wanted to get married here."

Will she? I asked. The mom isn’t sure. "Her date is two years from now. With everything going on ..." She means the bankruptcy. "If it was one year that would be one thing, but two years ... we don’t know what will be."

Then Oheka Castle owner Gary Melius walks into the bar. He first bought the property in 1984 and is now 81 years old. He lives at the castle and is known to often engage with guests. Grace Dieckmann is celebrating her 24th birthday with six friends when he approaches her table.

"I had literally zero clue who this person was," Dieckmann said later, when I tracked her down in the courtyard dining area. She’s a pre-K teacher’s assistant from Hicksville who wanted to spend her birthday dinner at the castle because Taylor Swift filmed her "Blank Space" video at Oheka in 2014.

"He saw my headband and said, ‘Are you celebrating your birthday?’ He brought a server over and said, ‘This round’s on me.’" Melius treated her and all six of her friends. "When he offered a round to us, I thought, ‘That’s interesting. If he’s going bankrupt ... you can’t tell,’ ’’ Dieckmann said.

Melius moves on, engaging with a man who is staying overnight at Oheka with his wife.

"He said, ‘How are you? This is my house,’ " said Scott Gibney, 64, of Northport, who owns a college consulting company with his wife, Susan, 63. Melius showed them photos on his phone of the scene when he purchased the property. Susan said Melius told them about when he was shot by a masked gunman in the parking lot in 2014. Then he bought the couple drinks. "I’ve never had an owner do that," Scott said.

(Reached after my stay, Melius said the Chapter 11 bankruptcy has had "no effects yet, no effects yet" on his business. "I'll be out of this. I'll refinance it, which I'm looking into right now. Or I sell a piece of my property, which is approved for 95 condos, and I can get $40 million back from that." He also explained his hospitality philosophy: "I speak to 3,000 people a month here. I want you to feel comfortable that you're in my house, I want you to feel good that somebody cares. ... I like people, otherwise you couldn't do what I do. There's no big shots here, I can tell you that, including me.")

6 p.m.: Taking a tour

I have an official group tour scheduled — it's $15 because I'm staying overnight ($30 if you're not).

Two dozen of us wait in the two-story lobby with the wishbone staircase for the tour to begin. For more than an hour, our guide, Anita, walks us through the castle’s rooms and grounds. We start in the library, which looks like a room from the TV show "Downton Abbey," where Anita gives us a history of the castle, using large cardboard photos to illustrate. Here’s some of what she tells us:

Otto Kahn was the original owner in 1919; he was a banker and contemporary of Andrew Carnegie, of Cornelius Vanderbilt, of J.P. Morgan during the Roaring '20s, when the Gold Coast of Long Island was replete with mansions that inspired "The Great Gatsby." The Mr. Moneybags Monopoly game character is modeled after Kahn. The castle is the second-largest private home in America, after the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. "It was about excess," Anita said of that era. "It was about being bigger and flashier than anybody else. It was about outdoing each other."

After Kahn died unexpectedly in 1934, his wife, Addie, walked away from the property, leaving it in the hands of New York State. The state gave it to the city of New York to use as a summer retreat for sanitation workers and their families, calling it Sanita.

Then, during World War II, 450 soldiers worked at the castle to break the code of the enemy. After the war, it became the home of the Eastern Military Academy school for boys from kindergarten through 12th grade from 1948 to 1978. By the late 1970s, the academy went bankrupt. During the ensuing years, squatters used the abandoned space. Thieves took everything they could, even the copper gutters on the house. Windows were shattered. Furniture was burned for heat. There was smoke damage, water damage, graffiti, broken marble.

In 1984, Melius bought the property for $1.5 million, planning to develop it into condos. "Then he did the worst thing a real estate developer could ever do. He fell in love with the building," Anita said. He spent the past 40 years and tens of millions of dollars restoring it, Anita said.

Anita shows us the ballroom, where the paintings on the wall were left by the production team of the 2002 Adam Sandler movie "Mr. Deeds," filmed at Oheka. In fact, much of the decor, including paintings, furniture and books in the library, were purchased at estate sales. She mentions other filming done at the venue — "Madam Secretary," "Royal Pains," "Dexter," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and a recent shoot with Ashton Kutcher for a series called "The Beauty." Framed articles about Oheka and its moments of stardom line many hallways.

She takes us to the bridal suite, to the room devoted to Charlie Chaplin, to the room where wedding receptions take place. She tells us how Kevin Jonas turned that room into a skateboard park when he married Danielle Deleasa at the castle in 2009. She points out the second-story balcony that is part of Melius' living quarters. 

She tells us about the basement where the venue’s bakery is located. When asked what else is in the basement, she avoids mentioning the famed man cave where Melius has been said to schmooze with local politicians. "Laundry, wine cellars, liquor rooms, the normal stuff, you know. Couple of boxes, the catering office. Normal stuff," she said. (I later learn Melius has closed the man cave to make way for a private club he said he'll open in a few months.)

Outdoors, Anita points out why Oheka is considered a castle. "We are a castle architecturally. The multiple gate houses, the architectural details like the turrets, the wall that wraps around the property make us a castle, not a mansion," she said.

The tour ends at the dining room, where many of the visitors, including me, stay for dinner.

7:15 p.m.: Dinner at Oheka

Meals can be served in the indoor dining room or the adjoining outdoor terrace. I order the bruschetta appetizer made with diced strawberries, ricotta cheese, prosciutto and balsamic vinegar, then the filet mignon as a main course and the peanut butter brownie sundae for dessert. My bill, including tax and tip, is $106.86.

9 p.m.: Turndown service

Bedtime. I return to my room to find my bedspread has been turned down and a bottle of water and drinking glass have been placed on each night table. No chocolate on the pillow, though.

The next morning

I am granted a late checkout at noon instead of 11 a.m. I have a breakfast of banana crepes and a side of bacon for $36.05 and take a last walk around the castle, bumping into that day's 11 a.m. public tour. When it’s time to leave, I call the front desk and ask for someone to carry my suitcase down the steps.

This time, help arrives.