Lands End, a sprawling estate on the tip of Sands Point, Long Island, is set to be bulldozed to make way for a five-home subdivision on the dramatic promontory. This has some literary historians up in arms, because the mansion at Lands End has long been rumored to be the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan’s house in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. (Sands Point is thought to be “East Egg,” the tonier of two peninsulas in Fitzgerald’s version of Long Island.) The 25-room colonial pile, built in 1902, sits in splendid isolation on thirteen acres of land. It’s been on and off the market for years, most recently listed for $30 million in 2009. Dilapidated beyond the point of swift repair, developers have decided to raze the mansion and replace it with five custom homes on the property, priced at $10 million and up.
Will Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director who is remaking the movie version of Gatsby, swoop in and save the place, so that his Daisy (Carrie Mulligan) can luxuriate there in 3-D splendor? Probably not. So let’s just take a moment to page through the novel to find the pages that describe the house in question:
The first time we “see” it:
When we first see Gatsby yearning for Daisy, in the home:
And then, after Daisy and Gatsby meet again:
And of course, if we’re speaking of bulldozing:
Gatsby House to Become True “Valley of the Ashes” Development [Curbed]
