Following Kahn's death in 1934, the property was sold to the City of New York for use as a retreat for sanitation workers and then later a government training school for merchant marine radio operators. In the late 1940s, an upscale housing development was constructed there and in 1948, the Eastern Military Academy (EMA) purchased the mansion and around it. (One of the former EMA cadets has written his memories going to school there.) By the time the school went bankrupt thirty years later, the gardens had been bulldozed, its rooms subdivided and the paneled walls painted over. Following the departure of EMA, vandals repeatedly set fire to the building, but because Kahn had insisted on constructing a concrete, brick and steel structure, the house survived. In 1984 a local developer, Gary Melius, purchased the estate for $1.5 million and began the largest private renovation project ever attempted in the United States. Today, Oheka is used as a catering facility, hotel and conference center.