Braving the Ghostly Ruins of Leon Levy’s Black Mansion

A book about ghosts led me to the Leon Levy Preserve in Lewisboro, searching for the ruins of a place known by a few different names over the past 60 years—names including the Bell Estate, the Kaplan place, and the Black Mansion.

I recently read Maureen Koehl’s Lewisboro Ghosts: Strange Tales and Scary Sightings. In one section she profiles an old mansion, the remnants of which sit on a piece of property that is now a 386-acre nature preserve with over 5 miles of trails. As a former South Salem resident I was intrigued, so on a recent weekend we took a drive to see what we could find.

To get to the Leon Levy Preserve from Route 684, take exit 6 and head east for 9.1 miles. Turn right onto Route 123 to go south. A short distance after the intersection there will be a small white sign for the Leon Levy Preserve on the right hand side. A small pull-off area and dirt road will be just after the sign. We pulled into the road and parked in a clearing in the woods.

I had printed a trail map from the Walking Wild section of lewisborogov. com. Our plan was to make a mediumsized, counterclockwise loop by using a few different trails—the White Trail to the Blue to the Yellow (even though they weren’t exactly connected) to the Blue to the White.

From the end of the access road, we took the White Trail that headed up the hill to the right. It’s a steady climb, which helped to warm us up a little on such a cold day. Towards the top of the hill lay the first set of ruins, a stone foundation with a chimney and some old pipes.

Heading further uphill, we came to an old road that is now the Blue Trail. We turned left. The road makes a slow curve to the right, then a sharp turn to the left. Where the path turns left, you will see the ruins of the Black Mansion on the right.

The vines, brush, and weeds have overtaken the former yard of the mansion, so we had to circle around to the right of the structure to access it. A large, monolithic stone formation greets you. It has been adorned with spray-painted graffiti, presumably from a local teenager. Two-story stone walls remain as a partial shell of the old house. The kids enjoyed climbing through the spaces that were once windows. On the south side of the ruins there are some below-grade rooms that, with a little imagination, could serve as a dungeon.

According to Koehl’s book, the mansion was built in the early 1900s but was abandoned, furnishings and all, sometime in the 40s or 50s. It burned down in 1979.

Leaving the ruins, we walked west through the woods to find the Yellow Trail. We turned left on an unmarked trail, assuming it was the Yellow Trail. As we came to an area with a grove of birch trees, which you don’t see too often around here, we spotted another old structure in the woods to the south—another foundation and chimney. You can stand in what was probably the basement and look up at the intact chimney and the fireplace that sits about eight feet above the ground you are standing on.

My son wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to shorten our trip. We walked east through the woods to meet up with the Blue Trail again. We turned right onto the path, which at this point is wide and pretty flat. The path splits and we veered left to stay on the Blue Trail. If you went right, you would end at a cell phone tower that is not on preserve property.

A short distance later, the White Trail will break off to the left. The White Trail then makes an abrupt left turn of almost 180 degrees to head back down the hill and toward the parking area. The last section is relatively flat.

There is a lot to explore at the Leon Levy Preserve. We saw only a fraction of it during our two-hour visit. There were some great rock formations, the ruins were certainly interesting, and I am told there is a ravine with 25-foot cliffs near the intersection of the Yellow and Blue Trails.

Leon Levy Preserve is one of the properties of the Westchester Land Trust. It was acquired as a preserve 2005. For more information and a history of the property, go to westchesterlandtrust. org.

Steven Mattson has been a resident of Brewster for over 10 years. He is on the board of the Putnam County Land Trust, and is currently writing a book

about family-oriented things to do in

www.putnamhospital.

and around Putnam County. He can be

reached at stvnmattson@yahoo.com. MATTSON