Kermit Roosevelt's Home Mohannis
Kermit Roosevelt’s 20 room, waterfront estate Mohannis was built close to Sagamore Hill. The property adjoined Shore Edge the home of Mayor Howard Smith. Following Kermit’s death on June 4, 1943 at Fort Richardson in Anchorage Alaska, Mohannis was converted into a convalescent home for torpedoed merchant seamen. Kermit’s wife Belle would then move into a 13 room home in NYC on Sutton Place.
In this photograph you can see a small group of merchant seaman gathered on Kermit’s lawn. On the day of the dedication the New York Times covered the ceremony.
OYSTER BAY, L. I., Sept. 8 - Mohannas, estate of Major and Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt in Cove Neck was formally dedicated this afternoon to the United Seaman's Service, Inc. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin of Major Roosevelt, was the honor guest. Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt and her brother-in-law, Archibald B. Roosevelt stood on the steps to receive 200 invited guests from Washington and New York and neighbors. Red Cross Motor Corps volunteer drivers pulled up the steep hill with ambulances bearing sailors just out of hospitals but able to join in the reception given to them and view, for the first time, the estate at which they are to be guests until they are ready to go back into service.
The wife of the President spoke briefly to the sailors, who were lined up in chairs near her, and pinned on each of them a merchant marine silver pin near the bar of blue, which signified that they had been torpedoed. She stopped to talk with every seaman before she joined the long receiving line in the library. Admiral Land accepted Mohannes as a seaman's home and said it was the first of several estates expected to be used for the sailors.
