A Nassau County listing is so grandiose in style and stature that it must be out of a Nelson DeMille novel.
Fitting, as it was the famed author’s former home.
Mr. DeMille, who died in September at 81, bought the 0.7-acre property in 2001 for $2.9 million. He tore the existing house down and replaced it with a 9,731-square-foot Tudor-style manse. It’s now for sale by his estate for $5.5 million.
The author, who was raised in nearby Elmont, N.Y., always wanted a house on the Hill, a ritzy neighborhood in Garden City, and jumped at the opportunity to buy the property, said his son, the writer and director Alexander DeMille.
The home’s architecture was inspired by Nelson DeMille’s novels “The Gate House” and “The Gold Coast,” both set on Long Island’s North Shore. But it also reflects the medieval timber frame architecture the elder author admired in Germany and other European countries, Alexander DeMille said.
Nelson DeMille, whose father was a well-known Long Island home builder, “had this interest in architecture, and it was one of the main focal points of any time we would travel together,” Alexander DeMille said.
The house took two years to build, Alexander DeMille said, with his father working closely alongside an architect to map out every detail.
The result is a sprawling five-bedroom home with multiple gas and wood-burning fireplaces, including one in a sitting room off the primary suite, which also features French doors leading to a terrace overlooking the half-acre backyard.
A stately mahogany staircase rising from a grand, double-height foyer leads to a lofted second level, while another staircase descends to a lower-level library, bar and movie theater.
Growing up, Nelson DeMille and his three brothers shared one bathroom, his son said. As such, he made sure his dream home had plenty: eight full and two half baths.
A turret on the side of the house contains a third set of stairs. Visitors often assumed it led to Nelson DeMille’s writing studio, to which he responded: “‘It’s just a staircase. I would never work at home.’” Alexander DeMille added that his father wrote his dry-humored novels and other works out of a commercial office elsewhere in Garden City.
Instead, the home’s mystical feel catered to Nelson DeMille’s love of hosting cocktail parties, dinner parties and other soirees.
“It added a little something to it, whenever we were here for holidays, to know that he really conceived this space out of his imagination,” Alexander DeMille said.
The home has a slate roof and multiple mechanical rooms. In the years since its completion, the author was meticulous about its maintenance and upkeep, his son said.
The property lacks a swimming pool, however, though there’s plenty of space for one out back, noted Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty agent Scott Wallace, who shares the listing with his colleague, Mary Krener.
And though it’s on the Hill, it’s not in an area that has the pastoral Garden City Golf Club for a neighbor. Instead, the DeMille house has views of other houses on all four sides.
Nonetheless, “with the mahogany doors and the oak floors with the mahogany inlays, and the archways and the bridal staircase, it’s really a magnificent home,” Mr. Wallace said.
As for who might buy it, Alexander DeMille said it won’t necessarily be a writer but someone who shares his father’s penchant for elaborate architecture.
“It’s a real expression of somebody’s personality and I think it will find a person who not only appreciates that it’s unique, but that it’s the kind of unique that they’re into,” he said.
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