“Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water…” So Nick Carraway describes the fancy, fictionalized area of Long Island in The Great Gatsby. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald was inspired to pen the book during his time living in Great Neck, according to scholars.
Fitzgerald and wife, Zelda, lived there between 1922 and 1924 and whooped it up Roaring-Twenties style with their extravagant neighbors, Kirk Curnutt, an English professor at Troy University, tells the Wall Street Journal. Now his (modernized) home is on sale for $3,888,888.
Last purchased by Larry Horn in 2008 for $4.2 million, the home has seven bedrooms, six full baths, and one partial. Fireplaces, an office, a gym, and an eat-in kitchen are spread throughout the 5,174-square-foot house. Built in 1918, the house boasts Mediterranean-style of architecture. The property, located on 0.42 acres, isn’t actually on the water, so there won’t be any green lights across the bay to keep you up at night.
Can you imagine the bashes you could have here? Of course, you’d have to invite that high school teacher who throws Great Gatsby parties after his students finish the book and just stands in his suit, staring forlornly out the window. Hoping to write a great American novel of your own? The room above the garage where Fitzgerald worked is now a bedroom.
Fitzgerald didn’t actually write the entire novel in this house; in 1924, he moved to France and finished the book there.
The listing agents are Inbar Mitzman and Nurit Weiss of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, just in case you’re feeling spendy.
If the literary scene isn’t your thing, you can buy a more notorious Long Island mansion instead – the one owned by Victoria Gotti, daughter of mobster John Gotti. Die-hard reality fans may remember the $2.7-million abode from Growing Up Gotti.
