'Great Gatsby' mansion bulldozed
A bulldozer is used to demolish the 'Land's End' mansion in Sands Point, Long Island. Photo: AP
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A bulldozer is used to demolish the 'Land's End' mansion in Sands Point, Long Island.
THE 25-room Long Island mansion believed to have inspired F Scott Fitzgerald's portrayal of lavish lifestyles in his Jazz Age classic 'The Great Gatsby' was bulldozed yesterday.
The mansion sitting on a 13-acre site on Long Island Sound, east of New York City, the 24,000-square foot (2,230-square-meter) house was torn down to accommodate five $10m custom homes.
"It's really a sad thing. The Gold Coast social country life is part of Long Island's legacy, a reminder of a grand and romantic era," said Alexandra Wolfe, local director of preservation services.
"It's such a shame that people find it difficult to honour that, to preserve that."
Real estate broker Paul Mateyunas estimates that through the end of World War II, the region once boasted about 1,400 estates inhabited by a Who's Who of the nation's financial titans. Now, only about 400 remain.
The trend in recent decades has moved away from mega-mansions, he said, largely because even for millionaires, they are very expensive to maintain.
- Frank Eltman in New York
Irish Independent
