If you have a spare $21.27 million laying around and really like saying ‘old sport’ all the time, the mansion that inspired The Great Gatsby is up for sale.
The 13-bedroom house in Long Island, New York‘s Sands Point district has been listed for US$16.88 million by real estate firm Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International.
In the 1920’s, author F Scott Fitzgerald would frequently visit the abode, then owned by his friend and railroad heiress Mary Harriman Rumsey. He’d frequently converse with the neighbours, including such famed NY families as the Guggenheims and the Vanderbilts, about their lifestyle and, “their involvement in the movement of eugenics.” Y’know, normal rich white people stuff.
He’d later include a modified version of the home in The Great Gatsby, as the home of the titular Jay Gatsby. There, he called the house:
…a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.
However, the real details of the home aren’t exactly as Fitzgerald imagined: there’s no ivy-covered tower, no swimming pool, and only 5.3 acres of land. That said, there’s still enough room for some crazy parties.
The house has an even wilder, more recent history: the seller is James Mai, who was one of the inspirations behind the 2015’s The Big Short; a film based around the true story of the men who predicted, and profited off, the GFC. His personal story was loosely adapted to fit the fictional character of Jamie Shipley, played by Finn Whitrock.
So you’d be buying a house that has a background in not one but two different stories about young, rich New Yorkers facing the social challenges of toughening financial times.
Still cheaper than buying a house in Sydney, though.
