The dream behind Montauk Manor

It was part of Carl Fisher’s dream. While much of that dream has eroded over the years, the Montauk Manor remains, symbolizing the 20th-century history of Montauk and what might have been.

Montauk is often referred to as “The End,” but in 1925 Mr. Fisher saw it as the beginning of an exciting and bordering-on-impossible venture. He was going to turn the hamlet on the Atlantic Ocean into a Miami Beach of the north.

And he almost did.

That the actual Montauk Manor even exists today is something like a dream come true. But now that the building has been put up for sale, its future is in doubt. Units in the 200-room former English Tudor Hotel have recently been put up for sale, with prices ranging from $200,000 to $500,000.

As the man who conceptualized the project, Mr. Fisher, a multimillionaire industrialist, hoped that Montauk Manor would be the “most fabulous summer resort ever imagined in the western world.” It was designed as a residence for wealthy vacationers by the architectural firm Schultze and Weaver, which had created the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan and The Breakers in Palm Beach.

After two years of designing and construction, in the spring of 1927 the building was dedicated and opened. It was indeed a grandiose jewel in the midst of Montauk.

Among its attractions were a ballroom, 200 guest rooms, a restaurant serving international cuisine, an expansive lawn, a verandah overlooking thousands of acres of woodlands, and its location atop Signal Hill that offered a sweeping view of the ocean.

Its presence within sight of the longtime fishing village on the south edge of Fort Pond Bay juxtaposed what Montauk had been and what it was might become. Residents of the village referred to it as the “castle on the hill.”

Today, the Manor contains 140 condominium apartments—ranging from studios to three bedrooms units—indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a health club, restaurant, conference rooms, and three tennis courts on grounds covering nine acres. It is one of 30 or more structures Fisher built that remain in Montauk, the remnants of his much bigger dream.

Born on January 12, 1874 in Greensburg, Indiana, Mr. Fisher’s family struggled with poverty, but that didn’t suppress the young man’s entrepreneurial spirit. He left school at the age of 12 to help support his family and he found some success as a competitive bicyclist. He later opened a bicycle shop, and a few years after that, Mr. Fisher was credited with opening one of the first automobile dealerships in America, in Indianapolis.

When he was only 20, a man with a patent for an automobile headlight walked into Mr. Fisher’s bicycle shop. He then tweaked the design and put up the money to manufacture the new light. Eventually, Mr. Fisher’s Prest-O-Lite company was bought by Union Carbide, making him a millionaire. Soon thereafter, he was looking for new mountains to climb.

His first major triumph was building the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During ceremonies at the Speedway, he met his future wife, Jane, who that day was a teenager in a gondolier being towed by a helium balloon. They divorced in 1926 before the Manor was completed.

Mr. Fisher’s next development was a large one indeed. In 1913, he created the east-west Lincoln Highway, the first national roadway for cars and trucks linking the coasts. This highway is often cited as the prototype for President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration when it developed the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

Mr. Fisher followed up his original highway with the north-south Dixie Highway, which when completed extended from the Canadian border to Florida.

As a result of his highway projects, Mr. Fisher was flush with cash when he arrived in Miami. Endowed with charm, restless energy, grand visions, and, it seemed, a Midas touch, he was well on his way to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in American history.

One day, as he visited some swampland just outside Miami, Mr. Fisher envisioned creating a huge resort. This vision became a reality. His workers cleared and dredged 200 acres of swamp, then built hotels and shops and nightclubs.

By 1915, Miami Beach was incorporated. By 1925, the facilities and amenities were so popular that a conservative estimate of Mr. Fisher’s wealth was $20 million.

In an attempt to duplicate this game plan in Montauk, Mr. Fisher told everyone who would listen—especially reporters and potential investors—that he was going to create “the most fabulous summer resort ever imagined in the western world.”

Most other men who used such hyperbole would have been dismissed as quacks or charlatans. But Mr. Fisher had a track record of having everything he touched turning to gold, so his boasts did not fall on deaf ears.

Making the task easier in Montauk was that the raw land was already there; it didn’t have to be carved out of swamp like in Miami. Mr. Fisher did eventually have a channel cut between the freshwater Lake Montauk and Block Island Sound as part of creating the Montauk Lake Club.

After forming the Montauk Beach Development Corp., Mr. Fisher bought 10,000 acres for $2.5 million and dedicated another $7 million for development of the new resort. He then set about constructing the Montauk Manor; Montauk Yacht Club on Lake Montauk; Montauk Downs Golf Club; Montauk Playhouse, which housed tennis courts and a boxing ring in addition to a theater; Montauk’s first churches, library, school, and railroad station; beach and nightclubs; private homes; and a seven-story office building known as the Tower, which at the time was Suffolk County’s tallest building.

The Montauk Manor and the Star Island Casino were especially popular magnets for the sophisticated crowd with cash. Politicians, entertainment stars, and heirs and heiresses enjoyed the beaches and nightlife.

The casino even continued to operate during the Depression ... until there was an embarrassing snafu. On Labor Day 1936, the casino was raided. One of the customers was New York Mayor Jimmy Walker. Thinking quickly as cops swarmed in, Mr. Walker put a white towel over his arm and walked about like a waiter, eventually slipping out the door. He took off his shoes and walked down the beach to the Montauk Yacht Club.

A few days afterward, the district attorney who ordered the raid was fired, but the casino remained closed.

During World War II, Montauk Manor became the barracks for enlisted personnel at the nearby torpedo testing range facilities and a naval hospital was built just south of the Manor’s front door. The hospital was torn down after the war. During the war, the Manor’s indoor tennis courts were used for stage performances and boxing matches and to show movies to entertain troops. The court area decayed after the war and was not used until it was recently renovated.

There is still living history attached to the Manor, in the form of locals who remember the building in its heyday. Paul Cook’s relationship with the Montauk Manor began in the 1930s, when, as an adolescent, he caddied at Montauk Downs for some of the distinguished guests. His family lived in the fishing village below the hill.

The youngster was a regular at the Manor, mostly running mail deliveries. “As postmaster, my father would entrust me to carry special delivery letters to Manor guests,” he said, adding that the most frequent recipient was a noted Hungarian playwright, Frank Molnar.

Mr. Cook reported that he’d walk up Manor Hill from the fishing village post office with the letters, then into the lobby of the Manor. “The concierge knew me as the postmaster’s son and he would sign for the delivery, and give usually a 10-cent tip,” he said. “This was quite enough for a cool Hires root beer and a Hostess cupcake on those hot summer days.”

Celebrities were routine at the Manor, but some had more star power than others, according to Mr. Cook. “I remember the visit of one of the most important men in American history, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, in 1936, when I was seven,” he said. “I was among a group of fishing villagers awaiting the steam train’s arrival. Also waiting was a horse-drawn carriage from Deep Hollow Ranch that would carry the special visitor to the Montauk Manor.”

Montauk resident Marshall Prado Jr. said he literally owes his life to Mr. Fisher and his Montauk dream, since were it not for Mr. Fisher, the Prados would have never met and begun a family. His father came to Montauk as Mr. Fisher’s chauffeur and his mother was a waitress at Montauk Manor.

The couple married and had a family. And after Mr. Fisher left Montauk, Mr. Prado Sr. bought and operated the Esso station on Main Street.

Mr. Prado told of his visit to a formal dinner at the Manor when he was 17. “It was a very formidable place, very fancy,” he recalled. “The Manor attracted a very different kind of high society to visit and be in residence here than you have today.”

Looking back fondly on the guests at the Manor, Mr. Prado lamented the end of the more fabulous, but more mannered, time. “They were more respectful of the local people, they really appeared to have earned that upper-crust status,” he said. “Now you have people who just made a million yesterday and they act like they’ve had money forever.”