The Legend of Pepperidge Hall- a Sunday Lesson on Greed and Death

The Legend of Pepperidge Hall
First Draft
Ghost Stories
By Richard Beattie

Ghost stories are often the first place where history is enmeshed and confused with stories that were hatched to scare kids on a cold fall evening. My brothers are experts on doing that. And that is why I think it is important to understand that tradition of the annual ghost story that has been told in my boyhood backyard must be thrown in the fire and refined with a healthy dose of truth.

The south shore of Long Island is often called Gold Coast South. On the Connetquot River and Great South Bay alone the mansions of Vanderbilt, Bourne, and Cutting still grace the waterside and are extremely impressive structures.

The story (or stories) surrounds the property where I grew up. The history of the Pepperidge Hall neighborhood is confusing. Its owner was Christopher Rhinelander Robert II, and the entire estate was designed by noted architect H. Edwards Ficken. The Robert lineage is reported to be traced back to William the Conqueror. The family money came from real estate and the sugar trade in the West Indies. Christopher Robert inherited lots of it and lived a privileged life. Robert was a widower by the time he planned his 1000 acre estate in Oakdale. He had remarried a well to do widow with three children, her name was Julia Morgan. Robert had Ficken design a country-lodge which the family lived in from 1882. A fire destroyed that home and it was then that Robert commissioned Ficken to design and build the elaborate French style mansion for Julia. The plans included stables, a carriage house, and a glass conservatory. While the mansion was still under construction Robert made a puzzling real estate trade with developer W.K. Ashton. The trade was for Wall Street property in Manhattan in exchange for the 1000 acre estate in Oakdale.