A private island, located in the middle of Lake Mahopac, New York, has been put on the market to be sold for $14,920,000 including the controversial Massaro House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Massaro House is situated atop at the heart-shaped private Petra Island, which spans an 11 acre area - the property sits magnificently in the middle of Lake Mahopac, and is only a 15-minute helicopter ride from Manhattan or a 4.5-minute helicopter ride from Westchester County Airport.

Image courtesy of Private Islands Online

Frank Lloyd Wright's historic house is conceived as one of the most magnificent properties in the New York metropolitan area, also famous with its "a never-constructed project" story. Back in 1949, an engineer named A. K. Chahroudi, commissioned the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a  house on the 10-acre (40,000 square meters) Petre Island, which Chahroudi owned. 

Even, the architect claimed that "When I finish the house on the island, it will surpass your Fallingwater," told Edgar Kaufmann, the owner of Wright’s celebrated Fallingwater.

Image courtesy of Private Islands Online

After Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the project for three months, Chahroudi cancelled the project as he couldn’t afford the $50,000 budget and the house was never built, and instead of that, Wright designed a 1,200-square-foot (110 square meters) cottage for Chahroudi for the island.

In 1996, Joseph Massaro, a sheet metal contractor, purchased the Petre Island for $700,000, and with the original renderings and drawings of this "never-built of Wright house", as part of the total budget of this island.

Image courtesy of Private Islands Online

After Massaro sold his business in 2000, he started to construction of the Massaro House with existing plans in his hands and the construction period took place between 2003-2007. 

For that mission, Massaro commissioned Thomas A. Heinz, an architect and Wright historian, to complete the unfinished house. Then, Heinz worked on Wright's plans on the 3D software in detail because Wright's original drawings were not clear enough to understand the building's character. 

Image courtesy of Private Islands Online

However, during this period, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation filed a lawsuit against Joseph Massaro for misinterpreting the plans and not referring to the original designs of the architect. According to Massaro, the foundation requested $450,000 to render working drawings from Wright's sketches and supervise construction of the house.

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

In addition, the foundation refused to recognize Massaro House as an official Frank Lloyd Wright creation. "It’s not a Frank Lloyd Wright house, because it hasn’t been certified by the foundation," said Philip Allsopp, the foundation’s chief executive office.

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

The Massaro House was put on the market for $20 M in 2012, now it is again on the sale list for by approximately reducing the prize $5M, announced by Chilton & Chadwick, a global real estate concierge. 

The property consists of 6 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, two guest houses, tea house and dock, a helipad on the roof and room for a pool, tennis court, covering a total of 557, 418-square-metre area and is surrounded by 2,000 square feet of decks.

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

The house is an elongated structure towards the natural beauty of the lake and raised above a stony pillar. Embedded in the existing landscape, the interior of the house takes natural daylight by its frowsty windows. Two mega rock formations, sized by 4mx18m, greet visitors in the main foyer and other rock formations also appear in the bathroom and kitchen.

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

Image courtesy of Chilton & Chadwick

Top image courtesy of Private Islands Online

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