For decades, treasure hunters believed there was gold buried in the walls of a granite mansion on Muttontown Road. The house had belonged to King Zog of Albania, the last monarch of his country, who bought the 150-acre Knollwood estate in 1951 after fleeing the Italian invasion of 1939 and living for years in England, Egypt and France. Zog never moved in. He sold the property in 1955 to Lansdell Christie, and as the mansion sat empty, rumors spread that Zog had hidden riches somewhere inside its sixty rooms. Vandals came looking. The Christie family had the building torn down in 1959. What remains today, a scatter of stone ruins deep in Muttontown Preserve, is one of the stranger footnotes in Long Island's Gold Coast history, and it sits inside the same 550 acres where a lot of Muttontown residents take their weekend walk.
That preserve, and the short stretch of East Norwich just past its gates, functions like a town center for a village that was never built with one.
Three Estates, One Preserve
Muttontown Preserve is Nassau County's largest nature preserve, and it exists in its current form because three separate Gold Coast properties were stitched together over time. Alexandra Moore McKay made her first gift of land in 1964, and over the following ten years donated close to 100 acres around her family's Chelsea estate. Nassau County had already purchased 400 acres from the Lansdell Christie estate, which included the original Winthrop Mansion. A smaller 20-acre parcel came from Mrs. Paul Hammond and still holds physical evidence of the pre-Revolutionary Duryea Farm. Add it up and you get the 550 acres that make up the preserve today, a patchwork of donated lawns, purchased woodland and one very old farm site, rather than a single tract set aside all at once.
The Mansion Still Earns Its Keep
Chelsea Mansion, the preserve's centerpiece, was built in 1924 by Benjamin and Alexandra Moore. The 40-room house blends French, English and Chinese design influences and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Benjamin Moore was also the first mayor of the Village of Muttontown, serving from 1931 to 1938, and he chose the village's name. After his death, Alexandra married a longtime family friend, Robert McKay, and continued living at Chelsea until her own death in 1983 at age 89.
What's easy to miss on a walk through the preserve is that Chelsea Mansion isn't a static museum piece. It's a working event venue today, booked through Philip Stone Caterers as part of the CulinArt Catering Collection, with Glatt Kosher catering available separately through Regal Caterers. On a fall Saturday, it's entirely possible to pass a wedding tent going up on the lawn while you're headed for the trailhead. The mansion pays for its own upkeep the same way it always has, by staying in use.
Two Ways In, Two Different Walks
The preserve has two main access points, and they don't offer the same experience. The Nature Center entrance, off Muttontown Lane near Route 25A, is the main gate. It's where you'll find Chelsea Mansion, marked trails and, on weekends, wedding traffic. One visitor's account describes finding the nature center itself locked along with the restrooms after Labor Day, so it's worth checking hours before counting on facilities.
The other entrance sits on Route 106, just north of Muttontown Road, at a small dirt lot used mainly by horse trailers. It's the shorter route to the Knollwood ruins, but the same visitor account describes those trails as unmarked, unmaintained and without water or a restroom of any kind. If your goal is the ruins and you don't mind a rougher walk, this is the faster way there. If you want the full loop past the mansion and the more established trail network, the Muttontown Lane side is the better start.
Trail sources also disagree on dogs. AllTrails lists the main 2.6-mile loop as off-limits to dogs entirely. A separate route through the preserve known as King Zog's Loop, mapped by Komoot, describes dogs as generally welcome on leash. Given the mixed signal, it's worth checking current posted rules at the trailhead before bringing a leash along, rather than assuming either source has the final word.
| Entrance | Access | What you'll find | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nature Center, Muttontown Lane | Off Route 25A, main gate | Chelsea Mansion, marked trails, event traffic on weekends | First visits, families, the full loop |
| Equestrian lot, Route 106 | North of Muttontown Road | Shortest path to the Knollwood ruins, unmarked trails, no water or restrooms | Return visitors headed straight for the ruins |
Where the Walk Actually Ends
Nassau County's own two-day garden tour itinerary pairs a Chelsea Mansion visit with dinner at Rothmann's Steak House, describing it as a formal landmark that once hosted Theodore Roosevelt. That's a useful data point on its own. It means the county tourism office, not just local habit, has already mapped the exact pattern a lot of preserve visitors follow without thinking about it: walk the grounds, then head the short distance into East Norwich for dinner.
Rothmann's isn't the only option on that stretch. As of early September 2026, OpenTable counted six restaurants in East Norwich, with diners recommending Rothmann's Steakhouse, L'Etoile and Hunter The Restaurant among the top picks. Hunter is a newer addition to the row, designed by Bentel and Bentel, the same James Beard Award-winning hospitality architects known for shaping some of the country's more distinctive restaurant interiors, with a sculpted walnut ceiling and a curved onyx bar. Yelp's current listing for the area also turns up Wild Honey, Angelina's Italian Cuisine, Coach Meeting House and 2 Spring, giving the row real range from steakhouse formality to more casual contemporary American plates.
None of these restaurants are inside the preserve. They're a few minutes down Route 25A or Northern Boulevard, which is exactly the point. Muttontown has no downtown, no Main Street storefronts, no square to gather in. What it has instead is a nature preserve that absorbs the civic function a downtown would normally serve, and a small commercial strip just past its edge that has quietly become the place where a walk turns into an evening.
That pattern extends slightly further too. A few minutes in the other direction sits Planting Fields Arboretum, the former estate of insurance magnate William Robertson Coe and Standard Oil heiress Mai Rogers Coe, one of the few Gold Coast properties that still holds its original 409 acres along with its historic greenhouses. Between the preserve, the arboretum and the East Norwich dining row, this small pocket of Nassau County does a lot of the work a conventional town center would otherwise need to do.
For a closer look at how the preserve shapes everyday privacy and space for the people who live around it, Patricia Santella's related guide to living near Muttontown Preserve goes deeper on that side of things, and her full Muttontown neighborhood guide covers what else sits nearby.
The ruins will still be there next weekend. So will the wait for a table at Rothmann's.