The 'Gatsby' Mansion Won't Be Saved

Via garylawrance.blogspot.com

L.I. Lands End mansion inspired The Great Gatsby

It's the end of another era, and news of a Great Gatsby house getting ripped down couldn't come at a more appropriate time. We were just discussing Bradley Cooper groveling for a part in the new Baz Lurhmann film, and now "Daisy's house" is going to be torn down to make way for multi-million dollar developments on Long Island. Pardonne moi, but FML.

Read: Bradley Cooper as Tom Buchanon

I read about the plans for razing in early March, but I felt fairly certain that someone would step in and save the 25-room mansion from demolition. I was wrong.

The home, called Lands End, has been neglected for years and was inherited by David Brodsky, a property developer. That was an unfortunate turn of events for the once-stately home, which costs its owner $5,000 a day in property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs.

Brodsky tried to sell Lands End for $30 million in 2006 and couldn't find a buyer, and now the land has been heartbreakingly divided into five building plots for "custom houses."

Oh, "custom" houses? Is that supposed to make me feel better? It makes me feel like absolute shite, because this home once held America's creme-de-la-creme at lavish parties and is said to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's description of Daisy Buchanon's home with a green light at the end of the dock.

Read: Carey Mulligan Stole Blake Lively's Role in Great Gatsby Film

The only thing I have to console myself is a fantastic piece by Alexander Nazaryan, who connects the razing of Lands End to The Great Gatsby's theme of American achievement.

"If there is a so-called American dream, it is in this constant turning over, in the belief that we can outrun time (and the ultimate destruction of death, as evidenced by our love of young celebrity) by forever attaching ourselves to the new. This is what Nick realizes in the book's mockingly bitter conclusion: 'the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.'"

Well, there's that to keep in mind, then. I think it's a shame, but I can sleep better at night thinking that this is a real-life extension of Fitzgerald's--and Carraway's--musings.