Man To Restore 173-Year-Old Ebo Hill Mansion

SMITHTOWN, NY - A Deer Park man recently purchased the historic Ebo Hill mansion in Smithtown with plans to restore the 173-year-old home back to its former glory.

Richard Albano officially purchased the over 3-acre property 2 weeks ago, but has already started the restorations prior to that.

The plans just to purchase the home were almost a year in the making, after Albano saw the home and spent 10 months purchasing and flipping 8 other houses in order to be able to afford the 15,000-square-foot mansion.

Although the home has been vacant for about 17 years, Albano says many residents thought the home had been abandoned for even longer than that.

While the home may seem abandoned on the outside, the foundation and the framework was in great condition.

"The structure is amazingly sound - better than a brand new house would be today," Albano said.

The historic home also still has the original fixtures and original floors - all of which he plans to keep intact.

"I intend to restore the house exactly as it was when it was new, that’s my dream. I'm not making any changes at all," he said. "I didn’t want to see the house knocked down, the house has too much history."

And he's not the only one -- the previous owner who sold to house to Albano, Richard Longobardi, originally bought the house to restore it as well, but never had the financial opportunity to do so.

In addition, Albano has received an immense amount of support from the Smithtown community.

"Everything has been going really great, the support from the community and the neighbors has been incredible," he said. "It’s just incredible the amount of passion that people have for the house. It seems like the entire Smithtown community knows the house and loves the house."

He says he has already received about 2,000 messages on Facebook from residents stating that they always dreamed of buying and restoring the mansion.

Luckily for those excited residents, Albano says he will give them a chance to see the mansion once it is finished. However, it's still going to take some time.

Albano predicts that it will take him at least 6 months to finish most of the work on the 3-floor mansion, which has 16 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a ballroom, a reception room, a telephone room, a sewing room and more.

"Every room has a 'wow' factor," he said.

The renovations should be completely finished in about a year.

In the meantime, residents can check out the Ebo Hill mansion's Facebook page for photos and updates.