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St. Ignatius Retreat House.
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| The Brady Room |
It’s celtic name, Inisfada, in Gaelic, means Long Island. Nicholas and Genevieve Brady built the 87 room mansion between
1916-20 as a summer home. As you drive through its iron gates off Searingtown Road, a strong white figure of Christ greets
you with open arms. You have now left the turbulent world and Long Island Expressway for the bucolic surroundings of
pine, linden, oak, maple trees and one lone American Weeping Beech, God’s own work of art. Thirty-three acres of rolling
lawns, shrubs and flowers, a tea garden and reflecting pool soon define your new ambience. Enter with expectation.
Almost immediately a medieval like castle looks down upon you, a tall tower with slated roofs and embattlements. It once
was the fourth largest mansion in 1920 and holds what is the most beautiful small chapel in the country, St. Genevieve, on
the second floor. Meanwhile thirteen sculptured fairy tales don the outside walls around the Tudor Elizabethan mansion
beginning with little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. Ancient but attractive gargoyles, angels, drones and clowns as
well as many small animals peer at you from above under eaves and corners.. Even within its walls such creatures and
foliage are replicated on ceilings and over fireplaces. A visitor once remarked with reverence, “This is a place with
soul.”
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| St. Genevieve Chapel |
After the death of her husband, Genevieve donated Inisfada in 1937 to the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, the
Jesuits. By 1963 Fr. John Magan, S.J. converted it into a retreat house. What was formerly a summer refuge for the
wealthy eventually became a spiritual oasis for all. The long paned windows on the southern exposure of the main
chapel, once the living room, gently filters in the daylight of each season upon the altar and pews to enhance your
quiet.
In the end you have to turn your face again to the world but with more peace, renewed purpose and hope.
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