Friday, May 22, 2015

For Sale: Long Island House Previously Owned By Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald

From Curbed:

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's Prohibition-Era Long Island Pad Asks $3.8M
Location: Great Neck, New York
Price: $3,888,888

It's not East or West Egg, nowhere near the same league as Gatsby's gilded mansion, but this Mediterranean home in Great Neck can lay claim to something a lot more substantial than the fictional millionaire's backstory. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald called this stately 7-bed, 7-bath home from the fall of 1922 to April 1924 (Zelda nicknamed it her ""nifty little Babbitt house," a Sinclair Lewis reference poking fun at the bourgeois). Young and a bit reckless, cash-strapped yet renting a Rolls, the couple caroused as the early short stories that presaged The Great Gatsby sprung forth from a small office above the garage, inspired by the social behaviors and lavishness of Prohibition-era Long Island. Though Fitzgerald, flush from the success of This Side of Paradise, was living beyond his means, the Long Island move was meant as a money saver: their $300-a-month rent (roughly $4,000 today) was a lot cheaper than their previous stay in a Manhattan hotel suite....MORE
Proof that I make mistakes:
June 3, 2013
Our Last F. Scott Fitzgerald/Great Gatsby Post: "Living on $500,000 a Year"