Historic Home For Sale on Heathcote Road

The Beyonce story alerted the world to the wonders of Heathcote Road in Scarsdale. Now another elegant home is for sale on the street at 18 Heathcote Road. The 9,200+ square foot house sits on 5.39 acres and has 17 rooms, a tennis court and a pool. The listing says, “One of the most exceptional and gracious Murray Hill properties ever offered on exquisite 5.39 acres with pool and tennis court. Meticulously renovated and expanded with state of the art systems throughout. Magnificent Clive Christian kitchen and master bath. Attached guest townhouse with private entrance.”

We went to the library to see what we could learn about the history of the house that was built in 1907 and the people who lived there. Shown below is a historic photo of 18 Heathcote Road that does not look at all like the current home on the property. In the historic photo shown below, the home is Tudor-style and called “The Hedges” and is said to be the residence of Mark Eisner.

A look back through archives of the Scarsdale Inquirer shows that Eisner was a prominent man in the community and in New York. In 1929 he joined the board of a new Scarsdale bank and trust and in 1930 he was re-elected to the Caleb Heathcote Trust and chosen to serve as treasurer. In 1931 he was among a group of lawyers at the Town Club who fought equalization rates and in 1933 he announced that he was not a candidate for Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. He also served on the Board of Higher Education of New York City and headed the American Association for Jewish Education. His wife won honors at a local flower show in March 1933 and in March 1944 she called the Spring Flower Show, “the best ever.”

His son, Mark Eisner Jr., enlisted and was stationed at boot camp in Sampson on Seneca Lake in New York in 1945. In 1948 Eisner Jr. graduated from George Washington University. An article from November 18, 1932 says that an intruder entered the home but ran out as the maid called out!

The house was later purchased by Leonard and Virginia Marx. Marx was a developer and manager of real estate properties and chairman and chief executive of Merchants National Properties. In 1985 he was on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans with a net worth of $300 million. The Marx’s were active philanthropists who endowed professorships at Columbia University and built a daycare center at Westchester Community College called the Virginia Marx Children’s Center. Leonard Marx served as a trustee of the Scarsdale Foundation from 1953-1974. Virginia Marx died in 1999 and Leonard Marx died in 2002 at the age of 97 at the house on Heathcote Road. One of their daughters still lives in town and in 2007 the Virginia and Leonard Marx Foundation donated $300,000 to renovate the reference room at the Scarsdale Public Library.

18 Heathcote Road is now listed by Coldwell Banker for $12,995,000 with real estate taxes of $175,390.

If anyone can explain the disparity between the current and historic photos, please do so in the comments section below.

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