A Long Island mansion believed to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s description of Daisy Buchanan’s abode is set to be razed. In the novel, the house is in East Egg and faces Gatsby’s palace in West Egg. In real life, the 1902 property is in Sands Point, has 25 rooms and is set to be demolished because of rising land taxes and maintenance costs. It’s just the latest in hundreds of such historic homes on Long Island to have suffered the same fate for similar reasons. It will be replaced by five houses worth $10 million each.
The news comes hot on the heels of an announcement of another film project based on the novel. Pre-production begins this month in Sydney on film director Baz Luhrmann’s 3D version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, The Great Gatsby. Filming is expected to start in August. The film will star Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. It will be the novel’s seventh adaptation for the screen, but it will boast a few firsts, including the first to have been produced in Australia and the first to have been shot in 3D. The most famous, the third, made in 1974, starred Robert redford and Mia Farrow, and the sixth was a Korean version. There seems to be an especially Australian connection with the classic novel of the great American dream - illustrator Nicki Greenberg’s adaptation of the novel in graphic form has been highly successful.