Lake Mahopac island featuring Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home relisted at $12.9M

A 10-acre island in Lake Mahopac that is home to a residence inspired by a jettisoned Frank Lloyd Wright design is back on the market at a reduced listing.

In 1949, Wright was commissioned to build a 5,000-square-foot single-story home on Petra Island, which was owned by an engineer named Ahmed Chahroudi, who canceled the project due to a lack of funding needed to accommodate Wright”™s vision. Instead, Wright built a small cottage on the island that Chahroudi used as a vacation home.

Petra Island was bought in 1996 for $700,000 by Joseph Massaro, a sheet metal contractor who sought to build a home based on the abandoned Wright plans. However, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has refused to certify the completed project, known as the Massaro House, as an official Wright creation after it was completed in 2007. Massaro sued the foundation over the lack of an official designation. The parties reached a settlement that allowed Massaro to refer to his property as “inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright.”

Petra Island was initially listed for sale in 2012 for $20 million, and in 2013 it was center of a celebrity gossip item that claimed Angelina Jolie was buying the property for her then-significant other Brad Pitt. The Hollywood couple never acquired the property, which has been on-and-off the market for the past seven years, most recently in 2017 with a listing price of just under $15 million.

Now, the island and its”™ two structures are back in a $12.9 million listing by Douglas Elliman Real Estate that heralds the Massaro House by calling it a “Frank Lloyd Wright-designed” structure that is an “architectural masterpiece showcasing the pinnacle of design and engineering.” The listing also notes the island”™s helipad by promising buyers the option for a “quick helicopter ride from Manhattan or Westchester Airport.” The yearly real estate tax is $145,268.