Great Gatsby Mansion to Be Torn Down

The Gilded Age mansion said to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby is doomed. Lands End, a 25-room, 24,000 square foot mansion on Long Island's Gold Coast, will be demolished later this month, Newsday reports. The home, site of lavish parties in the '20s and '30s, was on the market for $30 million but failed to attract a buyer.

Taxes, insurance, and maintenance on the crumbling mansion—one of a dwindling number of survivors of thousands of mansions built in the area by wealthy New Yorkers in the 19th and early 20th centuries—cost some $4,500 per day. Developers now plan to split the 25-acre site into five properties. "The cost to renovate these things is just so overwhelming that people aren't interested in it," says a construction manager. "The value of the property is the land." (Click to read about Baz Luhrman's upcoming film version of the book.)