Subscribe our newsletter and get notifications to stay update
Long Island’s Gold Coast still shines — albeit in a more subdued manner than when “The Great Gatsby” was published 100 years ago.The novel, which is celebrating its centennial this week, is set in the mammoth mansions of the tony North Shore.While some of the colossal homes from the era remain, the atmosphere is less debaucherous than it was in F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s day.In 1924, when Fitzgerald was completing his first draft, the speed limit on state highways was 30 mph, and the Hamptons were a wearisome schlep, still the domain of gnarled fishermen and potato farmers with old Dutch names.The “it” spots for hotsy-totsy hoopla hugged commuter-friendly villages on the Long Island Sound — where the children and grandchildren of Gilded Age industrial barons played and the Jazz Age’s newly minted tycoons went to purchase respectability.At its peak, the Gold Coast, which extends from Great Neck to Northport, had roughly 1,200 mansions, almost half of which were set on 50 acres or more.Great families, such as the Vanderbilts, Astors, Guggenheims, Roosevelts, Hearts, and Whitneys, called these huge houses home.They were egos externalized.
Forty to 60 rooms were the norm, and many had upwards of 90.There were over-the-top amenities galore, from lake-sized swimming pools set in formal gardens to equestrian parks and sunken tennis courts.Today, less than a third of the old mansions remain.
Most have been razed to make way for new construction.Of those that still stand, only a few dozen are private residences. Artist Irene Vultaggio and her husband, Arizona Ice Tea billionaire Don Vultaggio, reside in a sprawling French Chateau-style stone manor immediately next to the Sands Point Lighthouse, which they also own, in North Hempstead.“I live in Daisy’s house,” Irene told The Post.
“My house is the house with the lighthouse ..
.So [Gatsby] would look towards my house, and there would be the green light.”The Vultaggios built the home in the 1990s....