Andrew J. Thomas (1875–1965) was a self-taught American architect known for designing low-cost apartment complexes that featured integrated gardens and green spaces. Thomas advocated for the inclusion of green spaces in New York City tenement buildings and designed U-shaped complexes surrounding interior gardens. He worked for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.
Thomas was a regular visitor to Montauk as early as the 1890s. In 1927, he purchased land from the Montauk Beach Development Corporation and designed a massive estate overlooking Fort Pond Bay. In 1929, he purchased an additional 8 acres, bringing the total to 20 acres.
The estate comprised a Spanish-style main house, greenhouses stocked with tropical plants, lavish gardens, barns, ponds, a horse riding track, and a watchtower. On the estate grounds a personal zoo housed gazelles, peacocks, crested African cranes, parrots, parakeets, horses, dogs, roosters, and wild native ducks and geese. In 1929, Jimmy Walker, Mayor of New York City from 1926–1932, visited Andrew J. Thomas at his Montauk estate.
By 1936, artist Elbert McGran Jackson (American, 1896–1962) purchased the estate from Thomas and began to make considerable alterations and repairs. E. M. Jackson was a commercial artist and illustrator, well known for his illustrations featured on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. He set up a silkscreen fabric printing factory in the greenhouses of the former Andrew J. Thomas estate. By the 1950s, the estate had fallen into disrepair. The buildings were razed and the land was subdivided for residential development.
