"Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water . . . Their [Tom and Daisy’s] house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon . . . " (Page 8).
"From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale . . . and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near . . . From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen . . . and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another . . . and James B. (“Rot-Gut”) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably the next day" (Page 49).
"And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch" (Page 8).
Sands Point Preserve http://sandspointpreserveconservancy.org/
The Hempstead House at the Sands Point Preserve was the actual home of the Guggenheim family. It is located in the Village of Sands Point in the Peninsula of Port Washington. The Hempstead House is a 50,000 square foot Tudor mansion with a 60 foot entry foyer. In 1917, the mansion, as well as a 100,000 square foot medieval castle on the property, was sold to Daniel Guggenheim. The two other brothers, Isaac and William, also owned adjoining estates, which collectively occupy the entire northern tip of Sands Point. Daniel Guggenheim's son, Harry, was a close friend of the aviator Charles Lindbergh, and the grounds of the Hempstead House is large enough for Lindberg to land his plane during his visits. https://watch.thirteen.org/video/nyc-arts-nyc-arts-full-episode-june-30-2016/
The Guggenheim property is the embodiment of Gold Coast opulence. While Otto Kahn was wealthy, the Guggenheims were the equivalent of the modern day Bezos, Gates, and Musk. The Hempstead House is the main mansion on the property, and it is located exactly where Tom and Daisy Buchanan would have lived if the novel were not fictional. From the view in the gardens of the property, directly across the Manhasset Bay is the Village of Kings Point in Great Neck. Even though there is no direct evidence, it is logical that Fitzgerald would have used this property as his inspiration for the "old money" of the East Egg.
Sands Point Preserve, East Egg
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