'Gatsby mansion' to get wrecking ball
Gatsby mansion – or at least the one some say helped inspire the novel – is beyond repair. Five $10 million homes on Long Island will replace 'Great Gatsby' mansion.
"The Great Gatsby," the F.Scott Fitzgerald novel, was made into this 1949 movie with (pictured) Barry Sullivan and Ruth Hussey. A 1902 mansion on Long Island, which some scholars say served as the inspiration for the Great Gatsby mansion, is due to be torn down.
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SANDS POINT, N.Y.
A 25-room mansion some scholars believe inspired "The Great Gatsby" is to be razed for a subdivision.
Randy Bond, village clerk in Sands Point on New York's Long Island, says it will be replaced by five houses priced at $10 million each. The location faces the Long Island Sound.
Some F. Scott Fitzgerald experts believe the author used the sprawling 1902 property as a model for the home of character Daisy Buchanan, though the current owner believes the mansion's "Gatsby" link has been overstated.
David Brodsky says his family bought it in 2004, but says the house is beyond repair.
Historians tell Newsday, which reported the deal Sunday, that hundreds of the mansions have been lost in the past 50 years because of rising taxes and maintenance costs.