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  • An American dream

    Newsday (New York)
    July 4, 2004 Sunday
    ALL EDITIONS

    An American dream

    BY JAN TYLER. freelance writer.

    Michael Halberian's father, Jack, was a 17-year-old immigrant from
    Armenia when he first saw the Steinway Mansion in 1914. In those
    days, the imposing structure was the centerpiece of a 440-acre
    country estate. Standing on a bluff overlooking the East River in
    Astoria, the summer home of the piano-making Steinway family with its
    lofty square tower "was to him like a grand stone castle," says
    Michael.

    "My father was a simple tailor; he'd see the 'castle' every day from
    across the fields on his way to work. To him it was a symbol of what
    anyone could aspire to in America. He was a dreamer, but he was
    determined to own it one day."

    His father's dream came true in 1926 - the year Michael was born. The
    25-room Steinway mansion, its property reduced to only one acre, came
    on the market, and Jack went into debt to come up with the $40,000 he
    needed to make it his own.

    The house already had a place in history.

    William Steinway had purchased the mansion in 1870 from the widow of
    Benjamin Pike Jr., the man who built it. A manufacturer of optical
    instruments, Pike had images of his stock-in-trade etched into the
    glass inserts of a pair of massive walnut doors that connect the
    mansion's twin parlors. "The Smithsonian once wanted to buy those
    doors," says Michael. "But I wouldn't sell them."

    The house stands in the district once called Steinway Village near
    the Steinway & Sons piano factory. The family built homes for its
    workers and added municipal improvements that included a trolley line
    and a tunnel under the East River used by the city subway system. But
    eventually the Steinways abandoned the mansion, where they had hosted
    elegant parties, in favor of more fashionable locales and it stood
    empty until Jack Halberian purchased it.

    "The place was in excellent condition," says

    Michael, "but it had never been wired for electricity; it ran on
    gaslight. For some reason the Steinways had shut off the water, which
    was piped in from their factory, and the coal furnace sent up more
    dust than heat. My father did most of the repairs and upkeep with his
    own hands."

    Jack Halberian and his wife Shamie furnished the place with Edwardian
    and Victorian pieces that complemented the classic backgrounds - but
    they never attempted to alter their home's architectural integrity.
    All the public rooms - including a cavernous library and a demi-lune
    dining room - retain their original glory. The parlors are paneled in
    age-darkened pine, their 12-foot- high ceilings and wide crown
    moldings encrusted with ornately detailed Beaux-Arts sculptured
    plaster.

    When his father died 25 years ago, Michael, a restaurateur, moved
    back into his boyhood home with his wife and three children. "I put
    everything I have into this place, like my father did. I wanted to
    honor him and his dream."

    Now retired and divorced, Michael lives amid the fading splendor with
    three dogs that patrol the fenced-in property, a lone chicken with
    roaming privileges and a pair of house cats. He collects bronze and
    marble statuary as well as historical artifacts and assorted
    memorabilia that he displays on tables and sideboards and the mantels
    of five fireplaces.

    "I buy what catches my fancy at the moment," he says. His main
    interest at the moment is a collection of nonfiction books on a
    variety of subjects, just a fraction of the more than 30,000 titles
    in the library's floor-to-ceiling shelves and in the upper gallery of
    the center hall.

    The gallery is reached by a graceful curved staircase illuminated by
    a crystal chandelier 7 feet in diameter that he bought at auction. A
    motorized mechanism of his making raises and lowers the half-ton
    fixture that he believes once sparkled in a Whitney estate and now
    hangs from a leaded-glass skylight 30 feet above the main floor.

    Like his father before him, Michael is passionate about the survival
    of the house. Which is why, in 1966, he applied for - and received -
    city, state and national landmark status for it. He speaks with
    reverence about his father's vision and his mother's warmth and
    humor. "No one ever grew up in a more loving atmosphere."

    There was just one element from the mansion's glory days that Michael
    couldn't preserve. He shows a photograph of the original cast-iron
    portico and supporting pillars that distinguished the front entry
    even in his childhood. Rusted and worn by time and weather, the
    ornate portico would have cost $250,000 to replace. Reluctantly, he
    removed it several years ago.

    Now the still-impressive pillars stand alone - silent sentries of a
    time before a waste treatment plant and industrial complexes intruded
    on the pastoral setting, a time when the mansion on the river's shore
    was a symbol of the American dream.

    GRAPHIC: NEWSDAY PHOTOS / BRUCE GILBERT - 1) LANDMARK: The 25-room
    stone castle on a bluff holds on to its place in history. 2)
    surrounded by History: The parlor's intricately carved mantel and
    sculptured plaster moldings harken to bygone days. 3) SPLENDOR IN THE
    PAST: Michael Halberian's eclectic collection of antique statuary,
    left, is displayed throughout the house. 4) Below, from left:
    elaborate moldings around the library skylight; 5) exterior pillars
    stand tall against the vagaries of time; 6) ceiling medallion in the
    parlor; 7) etched glass in the massive walnut front doors. 8) Newsday
    Cover Photo by Bruce Gilbert - A half-ton crystal chandelier hangs 30
    feet above the foyer in the Steinway mansion.
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