Long Island’s Gold Coast has long been famous for its gilded mansions and wealthy residents. In fact, it was the Gold Coast that F. Scott Fitzgerald used as the setting for The Great Gatsby. In 1906, wealthy oil industrialist Harold Irving Pratt built Welwyn, a mansion located on an expansive 204-acre estate that looks out on Long Island Sound. Pratt was one of the sons of Charles Pratt, who founded the Pratt Institute. Other Pratt siblings had similarly opulent estates nearby.Pratt and his wife, Harriet, lived in the home until his death in 1939 and hers in 1969. The home was willed to Nassau County, but as the county had no plans for the estate, it sat empty for many years. The home, a large, Georgian-style manor, as well as its greenhouses were left to decay and the gardens became overgrown with vegetation. At one point in the 1990s, the Nassau County Sherriff’s Department used the cement basements under the greenhouses for training, but the rest of the estate was abandoned.In 1993, Boris Chartan, a local Holocaust survivor, announced plans to restore the main house and use it to house Long Island’s first Holocaust museum. The museum, the Holocaust Memorial &amp; Tolerance Center, is still in operation. The museum also hoped to restore some of the gardens adjacent to the house but maintaining the gardens and the greenhouses proved to be prohibitively expensive. The greenhouses are now the most derelict buildings on the property.Today, apart from the manor house which houses the museum, the Welwyn Estate is largely abandoned and overgrown. It is now known as Welwyn Preserve and is open to the public for hikes and exploration. Trails and cobblestone paths lead through the grounds down to what was once the private beach of the Pratts. Many of the buildings are now covered in graffiti and the glass has long been broken out of the greenhouses, but the grounds are beautiful in an untamed way.

One of the decaying buildings on the preserve

The website for the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center 

Website

The 204-acre Welwyn Preserve is located on the site of what was once the sprawling Welwyn Estate. The estate was the home of industrialist Harold Irving Pratt and his wife Harriet. After Harriet’s death in 1969, the estate was willed to Nassau County and, because the county had no plans for the estate, it sat empty and derelict for a number of years. In the 1990s, the mansion was restored and now houses a Holocaust museum. Aside from the mansion, the estate’s other buildings and its gardens, which were designed by the Olmsted brothers, have not been maintained and are in a state of advanced decay.

Welwyn Preserve 

This tour stars at Hampstead House on the North Shore, a Guggenheim castle style mansion, and includes several lavish estates as well as the ruins of an Albanian King's mansion, the homes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Cullen Bryant, and other influential Americans, two mansion museums, sites related to Teddy Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, and yet another castle (the 2nd largest private home in America), the tour also includes the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the home where Walt Whitman was born, the mansion of F. W. Woolworth, and the Welwyn Preserve.

Hempstead House is one of four houses on the Guggenheim estate and was one of the most lavish estates on the Gold Coast. During the roaring 1920s, the estate was the place where the Guggenheim family spent their summers and hosted parties, performances and galas. Sands Point might be most famous to readers as the "East Egg" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby.&nbsp;The mansion was designed by architects Hunt &amp; Hunt and includes forty rooms with the first and second floors covering over 1.5 acres. Every room on the second floor contains a carved fireplace which is unique to each room. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the structure is the sixty-foot entrance foyer that includes a specially-crafted Wurlitzer Opus 445 Theatre organ. The organ was customized with specially designed pipes that exit through the floor of the foyer. The mansion was once full of European artwork, medieval wall tapestries, oriental rugs, and other assorted treasures and antiquities.&nbsp;

The mansion's library was modeled after the library within the palace of King James I. The billiards room once had a gold leaf ceiling, hand tooled leather wall covers, and 17th 17th-century workings taken from a Spanish palace. There is also a sunken Palm Court which once contained over 150 rare orchids, flowers and trees as well as an aviary house for exotic birds. Tours are available with advance reservations.&nbsp;The house was closed in 1930 after the completion of a new mansion on the grounds. It was reopened in 1940&nbsp;as a refugee home for children escaping the war in Europe. In 1942, 162 acres of the estate were donated to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and was completely purchased by the navy in 1946 to act as a Naval Training Device Center. And finally, in 1971 the county purchased the estate.

Today, tours are given of the house on weekends and it acts as the location for many weddings, corporate parties, private parties and is also the location where movies and shows such as Scent of A Woman, Malcolm X, Great Expectations, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Blacklist, Gotham, Billions, Dare Devil, The Americans, Boardwalk Empire, Royals Pains and Masters of Sex were all filmed.&nbsp;

One of four mansions that constitute the Guggenheim Estate, Hampstead House was once owned by two of the most wealthy families in America. The Indiana limestone mansion resembles a castle and includes forty rooms. Construction of the mansion began under Howard Gould, the last surviving son of railroad tycoon Jay Gould. Howard Gould acquired the land in 1900 and first built a castle was intended to be his home. After finding "Castle Gould" to be less comfortable than he planned, Howard commissioned the construction of this mansion which was completed in 1912. Gould moved to Europe in 1917 and sold the estate to Daniel Guggenheim, the son of silver mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim. With Daniel increasingly taking over the operations of the family business, this home served as the summer getaway for the Guggenheim family until 1930 when Daniel Guggenheim died. His widow Florence ordered the construction of a fourth mansion on the grounds, Mille Fleur, where she lived until 1942 when she donated the entire estate to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. That organization sold the property to the US Navy and now serves as a professional society for aerospace engineers. The Navy operated the property as a training center until 1971 when Nassau County acquired the property which is now maintained and operated by the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy.

Hempstead House (Gould-Guggenheim Estate)

Roughly 26 miles east of Manhattan is the village of Sands Point, which was once owned in its entirety by Howard Gould, the son of Jay Gould. The younger Gould built himself a literal castle inspired by Kilkenny Castle in Ireland. Remarkable as the home is, his wife, actress Katherine Clemmons, did not like it, so he built a second, Tudor-inspired home nearby. She didn't like that home, either, and the couple soon divorced, reportedly because Clemmons' affair with famed Wild West star, Buffalo Bill Cody. Following the couple's divorce, Gould sold the property to Daniel Guggenheim. Guggenheim's two brothers, Isaac and William, also had estates nearby. The grand homes of Sands Point were reportedly the inspiration for the gilded "East Egg" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In 1923, Guggenheim presented his son, Harry, with 90 acres of the property as a wedding gift when Harry married Caroline Morton. The acreage was situated on a cliff overlooking Long Island Sound, and the estate that the Guggenheims would build there came to be known as Falaise, which is French for "cliff." The couple worked with architect Frederick Sterner to design a 26-room mansion in the style of a 13th-century Norman manor. The home was designed with numerous elements of Medieval design, including thick wood beams, archways, thickly mortarted brick walls, and a round tower. For their honeymoon, the couple traveled to Europe (along with Sterner) for what was essentially an extensive shopping trip. They brought back furnishings, artwork, and woodcarvings, many of which can still be seen in the home today. Harry, who had a keen interest in aviation and served as a naval aviator in World War I, was a close friend of Charles Lindbergh. In 1927, before Lindbergh departed on his flight from Long Island across the Atlantic, Guggenheim told the pilot to come for a visit when he returned. He did, and actually wrote his memoir "We" during a long stay at the home. He became a somewhat frequent visitor, and the aviator's station wagon is still parked at the property today. In 1939, Guggenheim married Alicia Patterson, who came from a journalism family, and the pair founded Newsday. Alicia was not fond of some of the dark, heavy Medieval elements of the home, and made changes that generally included giving the home a brighter, airier appearance. When Harry Guggenheim died in 1971, he deeded the property, including the house and all of its contents, to Nassau County as a museum site. The home is open from May to November each year, with tours of the home offered from Thursday to Sunday.

Falaise is the former home of Harry Guggenheim and his wife, Caroline Morton. The property, which sits on a cliff overlooking Long Island Sound, was a wedding gift to the Guggenheims from Harry's father, Daniel. Not only is Falaise one of the most intact of the Gold Coast estates, it has what is arguably the best view of any of the North Shore estates. It is now part of Sands Point Preserve and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Falaise Museum

John Hay "Jock" Whitney was the younger child and only son of Payne Whitney, noted businessman and philanthropist who inherited a substantial fortune and then enlarged it through his personal business dealings. The elder Whitney built a lavish estate, Greentree, overlooking Manhasset harbor, for his wife. In 1910, he built the boathouse for Jock, who used the building for both his yacht, the Aphrodite, and his seaplane. The home featured six bedrooms and seven bathrooms as well as what is now the largest private dock in the area.Jock Whitney began his professional career humbly, working for $65 a month as a clerk and eventually working his way up to $50 a week at a banking firm. While still working for this modest salary, he began investing in Aviation Corporation of America, which would eventually become PanAmerican World Airways. He became a venture capitalist and established the John Hay Whitney Foundation, which offered support to individuals who had experienced discrimination on the basis of race or gender discrimination to make improvements in their communities. He also became a prolific art collector, possessing what was then reportedly one of the largest private art collections in the United States. He had a keen interest in the arts, particularly theater and film, and helped finance the Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire as well as Gone With the Wind.Although he was a dedicated philanthropist (contributing at least $1 million annually to the John Hay Whitney Foundation), Jock Whitney also enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. He socialized with a number of the most well-known celebrities of his time and had a longtime friendship with Fred Astaire. Whitney is considered by some to be the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby, although there are other possible contenders for that role. Whether he inspired the fictional Long Islander or not, there is no question that Jock Whitney lived a life that afforded him every material comfort and an impressive list of celebrity friends and connections.Over the years, the Greentree estate was divided and sold, and portions of it were gifted to various organizations. Parts of the original estate are now used by the United Nations. The boathouse sits on a bit less than an acre and includes a guest house, a deep water dock, an indoor swimming pool, a private beach, and a clubroom. Every room in the home has waterfront views. The home, a private residence, sold in 2020, reportedly for more than $11 million.

Constructed in 1910 and gifted to John Hay "Jock" Whitney, the son of business tycoon Payne Whitney, this historic home is one of the largest private residences along the coast in this area of Long Island. The elder Whitney built a lavish estate known as Greentree, and he gifted his son this structure which was used to store a yacht and other lavish possessions. A highly successful businessman in his own right, Jock Whitney used the property as a vacation home, guesthouse, and to store his yacht, the Aphrodite, which he used to commute back and forth to Manhattan. He also used the property as a dock for his seaplane. The Whitney Boathouse remains a private residence and sold in 2020, reportedly for more than $11 million. 

Whitney Boathouse 

The Great Gatsby is arguably the quintessential American novel of the 1920s. Set on the fictional Long Island enclaves of East Egg and West Egg, the novel details the era’s decadence and fixation on wealth. Ultimately, the novel’s protagonist, Jay Gatsby, is destroyed by his pursuit of wealth, as well as his devotion to his former love, Daisy Buchanan. Long Island’s Gold Coast, home to the fabulously wealthy, is known to be the inspiration for the world of Gatsby and the Buchanans, with several mansions reportedly serving as the basis for their fictional counterparts. But Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Long Island’s 1920s excesses was not merely the work of a creative mind; he and his wife, Zelda, lived on the Gold Coast for almost two years. They were both observers of and participants in the bacchanalian atmosphere of the island. Though the Fitzgeralds themselves were comparatively cash-deprived at the time, their neighbors threw the lavish parties depicted in the novel, and Scott and Zelda—never ones to miss a party—were almost certainly in attendance.The home, a Mediterranean-style mansion of more than 5,000 square feet, was built in 1918. The Fitzgeralds began renting the home in October of 1922 and remained there until April of 1924, when they departed for France. Rent for the sprawling home was a mere $300 a month.By the time the Fitzgeralds arrived in Great Neck, Scott had already written his editor, Maxwell Perkins, with ideas for the novel that would become Gatsby. During the time that the couple lived in the house, it is believed that Fitzgerald wrote three chapters of the book, doing much of the work in a room above the garage. His time on the Gold Coast gave him the opportunity to rub elbows with the likes of Guggenheims and Vanderbilts, as well as titans from the entertainment industry and the occasional mobster, all of them contributing to the fictional world he was creating, as did the tensions between old and new money on the Gold Coast. The home has changed hands over the years and remains a private residence. It was most recently sold in 2016 for roughly $4 million. There have been updates since the Fitzgeralds resided on Gateway Drive, but the mansion reportedly looks much the way it did when it was home to a literary giant.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, famous chronicler of Jazz Age America, was a Minnesota native whose peripatetic life led him to call numerous places home, at least for short periods of time. There are several Gold Coast mansions rumored to have inspired the lavish homes that feature prominently in The Great Gatsby, but there is one that Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, are known to have lived in during the time that he was writing the classic novel. It is believed that Fitzgerald wrote at least three chapters of the novel while living in the Great Neck home. The home, which was built in 1918, looks much the way it did when the famous author and his family lived there.

Former Home of F. Scott Fitzgerald 

The poet William Cullen Bryant was born in Massachusetts in 1794. He began his career as an attorney and practiced law in Plainfield, Massachusetts for a number of years. Though he was trained as an attorney, Bryant developed an interest in poetry at a young age, and wrote some of his earliest poems while practicing law. In 1825, Bryant decided to embark on a literary career in New York City. He had already published some of his poetry by this point.His first literary job was with the New York Review.&nbsp;He also took part-time work with the New York Evening Post.&nbsp;&nbsp;Within a few years, Bryant became editor-in-chief and co-owner of the newspaper. Under Bryant's leadership, the newspaper became one of the most influential in the country. It was during his time as editor-in-chief of the Post that Bryant bought Cedarmere. He thought the quiet and scenic beauty of the place would provide a respite from the city and give him time to write. At the time that Bryant purchased the house, it was small, but he gradually enlarged it. He took an active interest in landscaping the estate, much of which was done by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park. Cedarmere (Bryant named the estate for the cedars on the property), is a 7 acre property. In addition to the Bryant residence, there is also a pond, a boathouse, a mill, and gardens. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Though born in Massachusetts, the poet William Cullen Bryant lived much of his life in New York. Bryant bought the property in 1843 to establish a retreat for himself from the pressures of New York City. Over the ensuing decades, he expanded both the house and the property to its present size. He lived at the home until his death in 1878. The home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Cedarmere (Home of William Cullen Bryant)

The Knollwood Estate was constructed between 1906 and 1920 on a 260-acre plot of land previously known as the Westbrook Farms. Designed by the prominent New York City architectural firm Hiss and Weekes, the enormous castle-style stone mansion was created at the behest of the estate owner- Wall Street executive and steel industry mogul Charles Hudson. The Knollwood Estate featured a 60-room main house, a 12-car garage and stable, a Colonial Revival style guest cottage, and lush gardens. Large portions of the surrounding land were developed for agricultural use and pasturing. Housing for farm laborers was constructed along the edges of the property. Hudson, who had a deep passion for Jersey cattle breeding, also had a large dairy barn set up for this purpose. Ultimately, Charles Hudson never got the chance to spend time at the Knollwood Estate however. Following his death in 1921, the property was sold to Gustavia Senff- the widow of former American Sugar Refining Company president Charles H. Senff. Her nephew inherited Knollwood upon her death 6 years later. Then, in 1951, the estate was purchased for $102,800 by an unusual foreign dignitary- King Gustav S. Zog of Albania. Formerly known for being among the youngest prime ministers in world history, Zog became Albania's first president on January 22, 1925. Three years later, he was declared the nation's first ever king- although the regime was the same military dictatorship as before. Roughly 600 blood feuds against King Zog were known to exist during this time and he purportedly survived 55 assassinations attempts throughout his years in power. King Zog's reign ended on April 7, 1939 with the invasion of Albania by Mussolini's troops. Aware that an invasion by Italy was imminent, the family had begun collecting their vast riches of gold and jewels months in advance. The King fled the country to Greece alongside the Albanian royal family. From there, they travelled to Istanbul, and then to Paris, where they were again forced to flee after the invasion of France in 1940. King Zog and his family resided in England and then Egypt throughout the 1940's. Zog is said to have purchased the Knollwood Estate with the gold and jewels he had smuggled out of his kingdom years prior. He envisioned a kingdom-in-exile at Knollwood, complete with his 120-member royal entourage and a staff of Albanian subjects. These plans never materialized however. King Zog never even visited the estate or paid property taxes. Knollwood was eventually sold by the Albanian Parliament in 1955. King Zog lived out the remainder of his life in exile at his home in France. He died in 1961 at the age of 65. Rumors that the monarch had hidden some of his material wealth in the walls of Knollwood led to the house being looted and vandalized during the 1950's. The mansion was finally demolished in 1959 due to structural safety concerns. Other nearby structures were razed in the years that followed. The estate was sold to Nassau County in 1969. Today, it is part of the county's 550-acre Muttontown Preserve. The ruins of the Knollwood Estate are accessible by a nature trail.

Originally built for a Wall Street executive between 1906 and 1920, the 60 room, 260 acre Knollwood Estate was purchased in 1951 by King Zog of Albania. Zog, one of the youngest prime ministers in world history and the first king of Albania, was forced to flee from his home country in 1939 after Mussolini's troops invaded. Following brief stints in Greece, Turkey, France, England, and Egypt, Zog planned on making the Knollwood Estate into his permanent residence- complete with a staff of Albanian subjects. However, the plans never came to fruition and the Albanian parliament sold the estate four years later. King Zog died at his residence in France in 1961. Knollwood soon fell into disrepair due to looters drawn by local legends of gold and jewels hidden in the walls by King Zog. In 1959, the estate was mostly demolished by the owner. Today, the ruins of King Zog's former estate are a part of Muttontown Preserve and are accessible by walking trail.

The Abandoned Ruins of King Zog's Estate

Oheka sits atop a hill, offering visitors excellent views over the area. This was by design: Kahn's builders spent two years making an artificial hill for the house. Concerned with fire, Kahn chose materials such as steel, concrete, brick, and limestone. Walls in the Grand Library might look like wood, but they're actually plaster, painted using the "faux bois" technique to resemble wooden panels. Oheka's gardens are inspired by&nbsp;those in Europe, including fountains and reflecting pools in addition to meticulous landscaping. Grounds also included an indoor pool,&nbsp;horse stables and a golf course. During the 1920s, Kahn and his family used Oheka as a summer home, where they threw sumptuous parties and hosted society's elite (celebrities, politicians, and royals).&nbsp; Otto Kahn died in 1934. In subsequent years, the building served as a retirement home for sanitation workers and then a military academy, before falling into abandonment. During the 1980s, lengthy restoration work repaired the damage done to the estate and turned it into an event venue. The estate now contains a hotel and restaurant and offers guided tours of the house and gardens. You might recognize Oheka from the 1941 film&nbsp;Citizen Kane, or from Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" music video.

Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1867, Otto Herman Kahn was a wealthy banker and philanthropist who would eventually become known as "King of New York." In 1914, he purchased 443 acres on which to build Oheka Castle, a French-style chateau, completed in 1919. At 109,000 square feet, Oheka is one of the largest private residences in the United States (second only to Biltmore in North Carolina). Its construction cost about $10 million (which translates to well over $100 million today). Oheka exemplifies the opulence and extravagance of Gilded Age America. 

Oheka Castle

Walt Whitman, born at this site in 1819, is known as one of America's most prolific writers. Whitman is perhaps best known for his poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, but the initial release of the collection did not receive much acclaim. However, by the end of his life, Whitman was a celebrated American poet; he was the first American poet to receive international acclaim. Today, his work has been translated into several languages and continues to inspire readers. The Whitman family can be traced to Huntington, Long Island as early as the 17th century. After their marriage in 1816, Whitman's parents, Walter and Louisa, started their family in this home. Three of their children, including Walt, were born here. The Whitmans moved to Brooklyn in 1823, and the house changed hands several times. A fire caused considerable damage to the house in 1910. Recognizing the significance of the structure and its vulnerability, the Huntington Historical Society worked to convince locals to protect the property. John and Georgia Watson then purchased the home, living there until the 1940s. In 1951, the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association acquired the house and grounds. In April 1957, the governor approved plans for the state to assume ownership, and on September 28, 1957, it became New York’s 22nd state historic site. Significant work has been done to ensure the house reflects its 19th-century appearance. Today, the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site is open to the public for tours. The Walt Whitman Interpretive Center provides additional information via a series of portraits, artifacts, and recordings.

Walt Whitman, born at this site in 1819, is known as one of America's most prolific writers. Whitman is perhaps best known for his poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, but the initial release of the collection did not receive much acclaim. However, by the end of his life, Whitman was a celebrated American poet; he was the first American poet to receive international acclaim. Today, his work has been translated into several languages and continues to inspire readers.

Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site

Theodore Roosevelt's affection for Oyster Bay began during his childhood when the Roosevelt family would travel from Manhattan to the Island during the summers. In 1880, Roosevelt was a young lawyer who had just announced his engagement to the beautiful Alice Hathaway Lee. Wanting to build a home for his young bride, he purchased a hilltop farm for $30,000 overlooking the Long Island Sound and the bay. Roosevelt's plans, however, were tragically delayed when Alice died in 1884, a few days after giving birth to the couple's first child, also named Alice. Now a single father, TR went through with his plans to build the home 23 room, Queen Anne style home he planned on calling "Leeholm." After re-marrying the former Edith Kermit Carow in 1886, TR changed the name to "Sagamore Hill." It is said the name came from a Native American Indian chief who lived on the property in the 17th century, Sagamore Mohannis.Sagamore Hill became a good-luck charm for TR politically. It was here where he received word he had been successfully nominated for governor of New York, then vice president of the United States, and finally president. After ascending to the presidency in 1901 following the death of William McKinley, Sagamore Hill became the nation's "Summer White House." It was here in 1905 during the year-long Russo-Japanese War that President Roosevelt brought together key envoys from both countries to discuss peace. The talks were crucial to the war's ending and Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Sagamore Hill also operated as a working farm, and the museum on the property features exhibits on farming at the beginning of the 20th century.Sagamore Hill was most importantly a family home. It was here that Roosevelt and Edith raised their six children and welcomed extended family members for joyous summers. Eleanor Roosevelt, the future first lady and wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was Roosevelt's favorite niece and she spent many summers at Sagamore Hill. The Theodore Roosevelt Museum is located in the home Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. built called "Old Orchard."In 2015, after a three year, $8.5 million renovation funded by the National Park Service and Friends of Sagamore Hill, Sagamore Hill reopened to the public. The renovation covered everything from fixing old shingles on the roof to installing new indirect lighting in the house's North Room, filled with Roosevelt's trophies. Walking through Sagamore Hill and around the surrounding property where the farm functioned, visitors transfer back in time to a moment when the man who rightfully earned the nickname "The Lion" roamed his beloved home overlooking the tranquil bay he sailed on.

Sagamore Hill was the home of one of the most influential American presidents whose life provides a window to understanding the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Theodore Roosevelt lived in this home for 35 years and it was here where he passed away in 1919. At Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt was surrounded by two of the most important things to him: family and nature. Located 25 miles east of Manhattan, Sagamore Hill is situated in the village of Cove Neck on Long Island. Roosevelt purchased 155 acres in 1884 and chose architect John A. Wood to build the Queen Anne style home. Roosevelt originally intended to name his estate "Leeholm" in honor of Alice Lee, his first wife who passed away in 1884. After remarrying two years later, Roosevelt decided to rename the estate Sagamore Hill and it is here where he and his second wife Edith Carow and family of six children spent many of their summers. During his presidency, Sagamore Hill was sometimes referred to as the "Summer White House." 

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Theodore Roosevelt first visited Oyster Bay as a teenager with his family in 1874. He was charmed by the natural beauty of the place, and would return to the area throughout his life. At 22, he purchased 155 acres in Oyster Bay to build his home, Sagamore Hill.&nbsp; During Roosevelt's time in office, the&nbsp;home at Sagamore Hill functioned as the Summer White House, and the President simply relocated his White House staff to Oyster Bay. When he died in his sleep in 1919, his family, well aware of the President's deep love for the area, requested permission to bury him on a hill overlooking Oyster Bay. The land was the private burial ground of the Youngs family, the same family who sold Roosevelt the land on which Sagamore Hill was built. The president is buried at the top of a hill in the cemetery. Roosevelt's funeral was simple, as is his gravesite. Twenty-six steps lead up the hill to the site, denoting Roosevelt's status as the twenty-sixth president. Roosevelt once remarked to a cousin that the woods near the cemetery were home to the greatest variety of birds in Oyster Bay. As a young man, Roosevelt listened closely to the different bird calls in the area, learned to mimic them, and recorded them in his journals. Following the president's death, his cousin, Emlen Roosevelt, purchased the surrounding woods and established the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary.&nbsp; The cemetery and sanctuary are within walking distance of each other. Youngs Memorial Cemetery is open to the public. It is roughly two miles from the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.&nbsp;

Oyster Bay, New York, was one of the places dearest to Theodore Roosevelt's heart. He visited Oyster Bay first as a young man with his family, and returned many times, eventually building his own home there. When Roosevelt died in 1919, his family requested permission to bury him on land owned by the Youngs family, who had a small private burial ground there. The former president is buried at the top of a hill in Youngs Memorial Cemetery.

Theodore Roosevelt's Final Resting Place (Youngs Memorial Cemetery)

The Christ Church building now standing began as a wood frame, Gothic style building in the 1870s, to replace an earlier church (the third) on the site. By 1902, the church property on the north side of West Main Street - Town Lot 16 - contained multiple wood frame buildings (see Sanborn map picture). The church was closest to the road, with a parish house - a rectory built in 1802 - to the west. The rear yard of the lot contained a dwelling with a wide front porch, and a barn and sheds in the west rear corner of the lot. Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt was born in 1858 and was the Governor of New York State from 1898 to 1900. Roosevelt served as U.S. Vice President under William McKinley from 1900 to 1901. When McKinley was shot and killed in 1901, Teddy became president. The Roosevelt family attended Christ Church while their summer home, summer White House, or permanent home was nearby. Teddy Roosevelt's first summer at Oyster Bay was in 1874, where his father rented a house. Teddy suffered from asthma and it is said that his worst asthma attacks tended to occur on Saturday evenings; since stress can induce an attack, historians have wondered if Teddy was subconsciously trying to avoid attending a long sermon the following morning at Christ Church. By the mid-1880s, Teddy was widowed and remarried while building a summer home in Oyster Bay at Sagamore Hill. During the summers of 1902 to 1908, Roosevelt made his home at Sagamore Hill the summer White House. One happy occasion celebrated at Christ Church was the April 4th 1913 wedding of Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, Ethel C., to Dr. Richard Derby. The funeral of the former president is the most famous event at the church and happened on January 8th 1919, two days after his death at Sagamore Hill. Roosevelt was buried in Oyster Bay at Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Portions of the 1870s wood frame building are still visible within the larger, stone-faced building from the 1920s expansion, including some wood trusses in the nave. A small section of the wooden pews, where the Roosevelt family worshipped, was preserved near the front of the interior space. Stained glass windows were added in the mid-1920s renovations and are said to be based on thise in the French cathedral in Chartres. The interior of the church was renovated once again in the 1990s.

The stone church at 61 East Main Street is Christ Church, the location of the funeral of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt on January 8th 1919. Several churches have stood on this spot, built in 1707, 1750, and 1844. The current church building began as a wood frame, Carpenter Gothic Victorian building in the early 1870s for the local Episcopal parish. The church was expanded in 1925 and encased in stone. Christ Church was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. The Roosevelt family's pew is marked with a flag now, and there are bronze memorial plaques on the walls nearby to family members. Christ Church continues to be an active Episcopal parish church.

Christ Church

The man that owned Raynham Hall before Samuel Townsend's 1738 purchase was named Thomas Weedon. Since Weedon worked as a carpenter, it is possible he was the builder of the original four-room house. Samuel Townsend was a young man from Jericho, New York; his brother, Jacob, moved in next door. The brpthers operated a trading/ shipping business from the nearby harbor; they owned five ships by the late 1760s. Samuel also operated a general store. The house eventually became home to Samuel, his wife Sarah Stoddard, and their eight children. Samuel also had quarters on the property for twenty enslaved persons. During the American Revolution, about half of Oyster Bay's residents were on the British side of the conflict. When the Battle of Long Island was lost by the Patriots in 1776, British soldiers arrested Samuel townsend for being a Patriot. Thomas Buchanan, the son-in-law of Samuel's brother Jacob and a partner in the Townsend shipping business, paid a ransom to free Samuel after he was forced to sign an oath of allegiance to the King. Loyalist Rangers occupied Raynham Hall from 1778 to 1779. The Samuel Townsend family shared the home with the troops. A letter written in 1779 by John Simcoe, one of the British soldiers, to one of Samuel Townsend's daughters, Sarah ("Sally"), asked her to be his Valentine; the letter survives and is said to be the first recorded Valentine's Day letter in America. Maybe the feelings were mutual - Sally lived the rest of her life in the "Old Homestead" and never married; she died in 1842 at age 82; her father had passed away in 1790. Her brother, Robert, spent some time during the Revolution as a spy for the American side, while living away from the family home. Robert returned to Oyster Bay and lived the bachelor life in the house until he died at age 85 in 1838. Their sister, Phebe, married a doctor from Connecticut named Ebenezer Seely, and the couple also made their home in the Townsend house. Another son of Samuel, Solomon (I), was a merchant in New York City; his son, Solomon (II), acquired the Oyster Bay home from Dr. Seely in 1851. Solomon (II) married a cousin, Helene DeKay, in 1849. The wealthy merchant and member of the New York State Legislature and his wife raised six children in the Oyster Bay home, after building a new wing and other improvements in 1851. The home went from eight to twenty-two rooms! Solomon (II) died in 1880; Helene passed away in 1895 and the house was left to a daughter, Maria Townsend. When Maria died in 1908, her brothers Solomon (III) and Maurice were still living in the house. To settle Maria's estate, the house was sold in 1912 to Edward Nicholls Townsend Jr. (a grandson of Solomon II). A niece of Helene - Julia Weeks Cole - bought the home in 1914 and converted it into a tea room and a meeting place for the Oyster Bay Historical and Genealogical Society. Miss Coles sold the house in 1933 to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Upkeep of the building and tea room proved costly, and the DAR sold the property to the Town of Oyster Bay in 1947. Early on during Town of Oyster Bay ownership, the front part of Raynham Hall was restored to its pre-Victorian configuration. A museum, focused on the Revolutionary War era, opened in the house in 1953. The museum now focuses on the many years of Townsend family ownership as well.

The building at 20 W. Main St. in the heart of Oyster Bay began as a "two by two" home around 1738 with two rooms on the first floor and two rooms above and a central chimney. Samuel Townsend bought the house in 1740 and added four more rooms, creating a saltbox style house. Even more changes took place in 1851, when Solomon Townsend added a new wing to the house, a tower with a skylight, and upgraded the interior in the latest Victorian styles. Solomon Townsend renamed the house "Raynham Hall" after an ancestral home in England; his descendants owned the home until 1933, when it was transferred to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Raynham Hall later became the property of the Town of Oyster Bay and has housed a museum since the 1950s. The building was listed on the National Register in 1974 and is reportedly haunted.

Raynham Hall Museum

Before there was WalMart, there were Woolworth's Five-and-Dime stores. Frank Winfield Woolworth was a retail pioneer, intoducing the notion of selling basic goods at rock-bottom prices. At the peak of his success, there were more than 5,000 Woolworth's in cities and towns around the world. By 1910, Woolworth had amassed enough wealth to commission what was then the tallest building in the world, the 792-foot Woolworth Tower at Broadway and Park Place. From 1911 to 1915, he commissioned three magnificent residences on East 80th Street, one for each of his daughters. He had his own lavish residence on East 80th, a home which was eventually demolished. But it was on Long Island's fabled Gold Coast where Woolworth built what is arguably his most colorful and storied residence, the expansive Winfield Hall. The home, which was built in 1916, was designed by architect Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert, and cost an astonishing $10 million. An earlier Woolworth residence was destroyed by fire, so Gilbert designed Winfield Hall entirely out of marble, believing it would be fire-proof. At the time, the mansion was one of the largest private residences in the United States. Woolworth reportedly had an interest bordering on an obsession with Napoleon, and built his remarkable estate with an arched entryway reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe. The home's interior was worthy of an emperor: mahogany, bronze, and sterling silver were used throughout. There is also reportedly a network of tunnels and hidden passageways connecting different parts of the home. But it was the home's grand staircase that garners the most attention. Designed in pink and beige marble, it cost $2 million to build in 1916, roughly one-fifth of the home's total construction cost. Winfield Hall is remarkable not only because of its immense scale and its luxurious interior. Practically from its inception, the home has reportedly been the site of supernatural occurrences. Woolworth's daughter, Edna Woolworth Hutton, (mother of "poor little rich girl" Barbara Hutton) died in 1917. The record seems clear that she died at the Plaza Hotel, but stories persist that she committed suicide inside Winfield Hall, in a room that has reportedly been locked ever since. There are accounts of a woman's crying from the room where Hutton supposedly died. Other guests have reported hearing organ playing, although the record is unclear as to whether F. W. Woolworth played the organ in life. That the tycoon also reportedly had an interest in the occult, and the fact that he died only two years after the home's completion almost certainly led some people to speculate about supernatural goings-on at the mansion.After Woolworth's death, the estate changed owners several times. At one point, it housed a girls' school. In 1976, the home was purchased by Martin Carey, the late brother of former New York governor Hugh Carey. Carey leased the residence to the Pall Corporation for use as the company's headquarters. The mansion was listed for sale in October of 2020.The home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was badly damaged by a fire in 2015 but has been repaired. Several movies were filmed in Winfield Hall, including the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.

Long Island's Gold Coast is known for its opulent homes, but even among its lavish estates, F. W. Woolworth's Winfield Hall is striking. Built in 1916, when Woolworth's five-and-dime stores dotted towns and cities across the country, the 56-room mansion was built on a remarkable scale. The mansion cost $10 million to construct, with one-fifth of the cost going to the home's stunning marble staircase, one of its most well-known features. The home has been used as a filming location for several films, including the HBO miniseries, Mildred Pierce, and, like many storied residences, is rumored to be haunted. Winfield Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Woolworth Estate (Winfield Hall)

Long Island’s Gold Coast has long been famous for its gilded mansions and wealthy residents. In fact, it was the Gold Coast that F. Scott Fitzgerald used as the setting for The Great Gatsby. In 1906, wealthy oil industrialist Harold Irving Pratt built Welwyn, a mansion located on an expansive 204-acre estate that looks out on Long Island Sound. Pratt was one of the sons of Charles Pratt, who founded the Pratt Institute. Other Pratt siblings had similarly opulent estates nearby. Pratt and his wife, Harriet, lived in the home until his death in 1939 and hers in 1969. The home was willed to Nassau County, but as the county had no plans for the estate, it sat empty for many years. The home, a large, Georgian-style manor, as well as its greenhouses were left to decay and the gardens became overgrown with vegetation. At one point in the 1990s, the Nassau County Sherriff’s Department used the cement basements under the greenhouses for training, but the rest of the estate was abandoned. In 1993, Boris Chartan, a local Holocaust survivor, announced plans to restore the main house and use it to house Long Island’s first Holocaust museum. The museum, the Holocaust Memorial &amp; Tolerance Center, is still in operation. The museum also hoped to restore some of the gardens adjacent to the house but maintaining the gardens and the greenhouses proved to be prohibitively expensive. The greenhouses are now the most derelict buildings on the property. Today, apart from the manor house which houses the museum, the Welwyn Estate is largely abandoned and overgrown. It is now known as Welwyn Preserve and is open to the public for hikes and exploration. Trails and cobblestone paths lead through the grounds down to what was once the private beach of the Pratts. Many of the buildings are now covered in graffiti and the glass has long been broken out of the greenhouses, but the grounds are beautiful in an untamed way.

Landmarks of Northwest Long Island Driving Tour

Welwyn Preserve

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information