Demolition begins at 'Gatsby' mansion

Land's End is on its way out.

Demolition crews began to tear down the 24,000-square-foot Gold Coast mansion Saturday. Some locals believe the once-regal estate was the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's house in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby."

A new subdivision will replace the 25-room Colonial Revival house on 13 acres with expansive views of Long Island Sound. Five custom homes are planned at the location, starting at $10 million each.

Alexandra Wolfe, director of preservation services for the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, said regardless of Fitzgerald's true connection to the property, which is a matter of debate, the relationship between the great author and the grand house has become local lore. And the estate itself, she said, is irreplaceable.

"It's just so sad," Wolfe said of Land's End's passing. "The fact is we have this legacy on Long Island and it's a shame to lose that. . . . It's something that is distinctly ours."

Land's End was built at the tip of the Sands Point peninsula in the early 1900s.

Rooms featured marble, parquet and wide wood-planked floors, Palladian windows and hand-painted wallpaper. There's a caretaker's cottage, two greenhouses, a tennis cabana and a pool house.

In the 1920s and '30s, Winston Churchill, the Marx Brothers and Ethel Barrymore attended parties there. There are reports of Fitzgerald being on the back deck, taking in the views.

In 2004, entrepreneur and developer Bert Brodsky bought the house for $17.5 million from Virginia Kraft Payson, wife of the late Charles Shipman Payson, a former Mets owner. He put the property up for sale in 2006 for $30 million.

Taxes, insurance and maintenance on Land's End totaled up to $4,500 a day, said Brodsky's son, David Brodsky, who is now overseeing the redevelopment of the property.

Just last month, before demolition began, the house was in poor condition, its front door off its hinges, wood floors torn up for salvage, windows missing and its Doric columns unsteady.

Land's End is the latest Gold Coast mansion to come down. In its heyday, the North Shore boasted 1,400 of these large estates. They were summer party houses and opulent places to entertain during Prohibition and beyond.

But the high taxes and upkeep proved to be too much. Hundreds were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, and that trend continues today, though at not so swift a pace.

With Will Van Sant