An online auction is underway for island property located in Long Island Sound just a few minutes by boat from New Rochelle. Two islands, Columbia Island and Pea Island, make up the approximately five-acres of property in the auction. While Columbia Island now sports a fully renovated four-bedroom, two-bathroom home with ultra-modern conveniences, that wasn’t always the case.
From 1941 until 1963 Columbia Island was home to the radio transmitter and 410-feet-tall broadcast tower for New York’s AM radio station WCBS. Before CBS bought it, the island had been owned by the Huguenot Yacht Club and was known as Little Pea Island, a companion to Pea Island. CBS, being the Columbia Broadcasting System, renamed Little Pea Island as Columbia Island.
CBS equipped the island facility with a 50,000-watt transmitter as well as a 5,000-watt backup transmitter along with work and residence quarters for up to 10 technicians. There was an emergency power generator should there be a failure of the underwater electric cable connecting the island to the mainland. They drilled down almost 1,000 feet in order to find an adequate fresh water supply. Technicians would take a boat to and from the island, except when the weather made the trip too risky. Transmitter technicians often had to remain on the island overnight. The salt water surrounding the island acted as a very efficient conductor for the radio station’s signal, allowing WCBS to be heard across a wide swath of the U.S., Canada and far out to sea. In 1963, WCBS moved its transmitter and tower to nearby High Island.
After WCBS left, radio and TV personalities Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy purchased the island and often broadcast their morning radio program on station WOR from there. After a couple of years they donated the real estate to The College of New Rochelle, which subsequently transferred it to private hands.
The combination of Columbia Island and Pea Island recently had been listed for sale for $4.99 million and now is being offered in a digital auction by Concierge Auctions in cooperation with Patricia Anderson of Julia B Fee Sotheby’s International Realty. The online auction is scheduled to remain open until Oct. 18.
The building on Columbia Island features solar electricity along with a diesel generator for backup. It employs a state-of-the-art water filtration system. Concierge Auctions said the boat ride between the island and New Rochelle takes only about five minutes.
