Mansion that inspired Great Gatsby razed
Reuters April 23, 2011
Bulldozers have razed a storied mansion where F. Scott Fitzgerald partied and which some say inspired his novel The Great Gatsby, leaving just a few chimneys standing on Long Island's Gold Coast.
The Land's End mansion was built in the early 20th century in Sands Point, N.Y., overlooking the waters of Long Island Sound. In the 1920s, it became the home of Herbert Bayard Swope, the executive editor of the New York World and an acquaintance of many of the luminaries who came to define the Roaring Twenties, including Fitzgerald.
But in recent years it had stood empty, a reminder that fabulously wealthy hedonists known for their decadent parties have found other playgrounds around the world.
"This is the last little bit of this glamour, the Gatsby era, the flapper age, and they're tearing it down," said Monica Randall, who wrote books about the area's gilded homes.
Gatsby mansion makes way for $10m super homes
A building in New York which is thought to have inspired F Scott Fitzgerald's classic 1925 novel "The Great Gatsby" has been demolished.
The Land's End mansion overlooking the Long Island Sound estuary of the Atlantic Ocean will be replaced by an exclusive new housing development.
The 25-room house flaunted marble, parquet floors, Palladian windows and hand-painted wallpaper.
A local newspaper said Winston Churchill, the Marx Brothers and Ethel Barrymore partied at Land's End in the 1920s and 1930s.
According to preservationist Alexandra Wolfe, Fitzgerald's relationship to the house has become local lore.
The 13-acre property will now feature five homes costing 10 million dollars each.
Increasing taxes and maintenance costs have led to the loss of hundreds of mansions on Long Island's Gold Coast over the past 50 years, historians said.