Commodore Elias Cornelius Benedict's Estate (former)

This is the Greenwich, CT estate of Commodore Elias Cornelius Benedict (January 24, 1834 – November 22, 1920). Commodore Benedict was a prominent New York City banker and yachtsman. He specialized in the gas and rubber industries. He was president of the Commercial Acetylene Gas Company and of the Marine Engine Company. The property is within the Indian Harbor Association overlooking Long Island Sound. The main house is now owned by Malcolm H. Wiener, an Aegean prehistorian, retired principal in an investment management firm, and philanthropist. He is an American citizen, born in Tsingtao, China. He is married to Carolyn Talbot Seely Wiener, with whom he has four children.

This 17,427 square foot single family home has 7 bedrooms and 11.5 bathrooms. It is currently valued at $20,741,840 and property taxes exceed $209,000 a year. The estate, covering 80 waterfront acres, has been divided into sections over the years and sold off. Other owners have included Edwin C. Whitehead, an industrialist and philanthropist whose legacy includes the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in Cambridge, Mass. The Whitehead estate offers not only the six-bedroom house but also a nine-car garage (with a clock tower and two apartments), a dock, a pool, a squash court, a tennis court, a greenhouse, a seven-acre peninsula and the three-acre Finch Island on Indian Harbor, formerly known as Tweed Island. Kevin P. Mahaney, a United States Olympic sailor, now owns the guest house, which is located near the intersection of Oneida Dr and Indian Harbor Dr.

Commodore Benedict was born in 1834 in Somers, New York. His father, Henry Benedict, was a clergyman. His mother was Mary Betts Lockwood, daughter of Captain Stephen Lockwood, of Norwalk, Connecticut. At fifteen in 1849, he joined the banking house of Corning & Co., New York. In 1857 he opened his own stockbroker's office on Wall Street. In 1859, he married Sarah Hart, daughter of Lucius Hart of New York. Their children were Frederick Hart Benedict, who was killed in an automobile accident near West Point; Martha, who married Ramsay Turnbull; Helen Ripley, who married Thomas Hastings; and Louise Adele Benedict, who married Clifford B. Harmon. During the United States Civil War he and his brother organized the Gold Exchange Bank. In later life Benedict became a yachtsman and was Commodore of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. He had been ill for more than a year and he died on November 22, 1920 in Indian Harbor in Greenwich, Connecticut.