In the fall of 1922, a 26-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, moved into a Mediterranean-style house on Long Island, N.Y.
Their stay lasted only 18 months; a move to France would follow. But Fitzgerald’s temporary abode near the North Shore, which then was a summer outpost for high society, proved worthwhile, inspiring what became his classic novel, “The Great Gatsby,” which was published 100 years ago.
Two affluent villages there, Great Neck and Sands Point, formed the basis for Fitzgerald’s fictional nouveau riche West Egg and blue-blooded East Egg. Whether a balmy day of poolside debauchery or a sweaty night spent dancing in the ballroom — more likely a combination of the two — it was in and around these estates that a revolving door of socialites, politicians, financiers, actors and artists (Fitzgerald included) rendezvoused.
Among the residents of the Gold Coast — a North Shore moniker evoking the opulence that existed there during the Gilded Age and Roaring ’20s, through the advent of Art Deco and the dawn of American consumerism — were names synonymous with generational wealth and power: Vanderbilt, Morgan, Whitney, Roosevelt, Woolworth, Guggenheim, Pratt, Rockefeller, Belmont, Astor and Pulitzer.
“The world was based on the East Coast,” said Gary Lawrance, an architect and historian of the Gold Coast era, who documents the histories of Gilded Age mansions for his 800,000 followers online.
