Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Land's End, Sands Point.

A collection of photographs from Land's End, the doomed estate in Sands Point, NY that is said to have been the inspiration for Tom and Daisy's home in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.Several more (my favs) are in my website gallery here. 

For more info on this historic property please visit Zach's awesome site and HERE

"I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited - they went there."

"Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."



Land's End, Sands Point.

Land's End, Sands Point.


Main Entrance, Land's End, Sands Point.


fixtures in pink onyx


"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." (I found these things outside the seafacing entrance - as you see them.)

"




"He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was."
Unless one decorates one's house for oneself alone, best leave it bare, for other people are walleyed.
D.H. Lawrence

Library at Land's End, Sands Point.

detail in library shelf
Library at Land's End, Sands Point.


Staircase at Land's End, Sands Point.


portrait by stairs
Land's End, Sands Point.

sea facing entrance opens into library through split barn door as seen in gallery on my website www.jenrossphoto.com
Front entrance and infamous porch at Land's End, Sands Point.
Cuvee Dom Perignon vintage 1962, transistor radio found in kitchen.




portrait of the photographer :) on banister



"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."




Thank you Anand Chetna for going through the quotes with me, and to my father for igniting the imagination and blurring the time space continuum using literary quotes for all these years.

contact: jross@jenrossphoto.com
 
Prints available, please contact Jen Ross for information.

©Jen Ross Photography 2011. All rights reserved

26 comments:

  1. These photos are a wonderful last record of a time and place soon to be lost.

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  2. It was a pleasure to work with you on those quotes. I am grateful to be involved in this way. Thank you.

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  3. Thank you for your comments Tdc, TDED and Chet. I am happy to share some of the details that had already been ripped out last time I walked by this old place. The house fits well on the land and am sorry to hear that several McMansions will be squeezed onto that beautiful point.

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  4. Tdclassicist said it better than I could, well done!

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  5. Beautiful shots ..... and the quotes. Very special.

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  6. Thank you for the beautiful pictures and the selection of wonderful quotes from the Great American Novel! So sorry to hear the house is going to be demolished.

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  7. I treasure your essay, absolutely gorgeous work you've done here, this is what I do for a living, ie purchase and restore derelict properties. I laughed/cried at Brodsky suggesting that restoration was beyond possible. I know better. Obviously, it would be a privilege to work on this house. Watching this tragedy play out is painful, you have given this house a proper dirge. F.

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  8. This is a beautiful place. I'm so sorry that it will be gone soon. Hopefully there will be a "white knight" that rides in for it...

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  9. As I said over at Old Long Island, through your pictures Land's End will live on forever...

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  10. I just blogged about this and someone led me here to your blog. I have linked your stunning photos in my post.

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  11. It seems like more and more all we have are old pictures and nothing more to live on forever...

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  12. I'm grateful someone was able to preserve in photographs the grandeur of this estate, which is now being destroyed by that greedy usurper Brodsky.

    A curiosity: how were you able to attain permission to photograph the inside of the house?

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  14. Thanks so much for posting these astoundingly sad photographs. The rape of Long Island continues...
    With so much money available in the larger community, it is truly surprising that no one has stepped forward to save this remarkable house. Historic structures in far worse condition has been economically restored, and the market for overblown new homes is flat – simply look at the numbers that have not sold, and their length of time on the market.
    I visited this house when O’Rundle Gilbert held an auction there in the 1960s. It was simply beautiful. Visitors entered the house through a short low passage under the principle landing on the stairs, so that as you entered the huge stair hall, the space blossomed around you. Very dramatic. Partway through the auction, Mr. Gilbert announced the new owners were going to restore the house. The audience stood and clapped…
    In my 45 years in Historic Preservation, I have seen few opportunities as good as golden as this thrown away so casually. Cultural toilet paper.
    My family bought John Philip Sousa’s summerhouse from his surviving daughter in 1965, saving it from demolition for a McMansion. We never regretted the decision. The home exists today as a direct result of our work. Many other fine homes have been saved at the last minute by other preservationists.
    It is very sad that does not appear to be in the cards here.
    Gregory Hubbard

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  15. I could almost hear the tinkling of the glasses, the society orchestra, the laughter of the assembled rich as they gathered to equate the offices of their class. Never did they think that their way of life would, with each passing day, be one step closer to the wrecking ball that would so callously negate the existence of a house and way of life that now form as a pale mist; ghosts of gentler time, gone forever. I thank you profusely, Ms. Ross, for your magnificent and touching photos that provided me with an era frozen in time, awaiting a hero who never came. You have done a great service to all who love old houses and the dear friends that they become.

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  16. Unbelieveable photos. Thank you for sharing this remarkable piece of history through your artistic eyes. I only wish I had the opportunity to take photos before this masterpiece met it's demise. When I lived in Port Washington, I would always make it a point to drive around Sands Point once a week to admire the one of a kind historic architecture. I'm glad I made it past Lands End each time, but I could never get close enough.
    After reading the comments, I must give many kudos to Gregory Hubbard and his family for the help of preserving of Long Island's classic irreplaceable wonders.

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  17. Thank you for sharing the photos of a Great Mansion of the Good Old Golden Days.

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  18. Thanks again everyone for sharing in this experience with me. Thank you to Gregory Hubbard, his family, and all the people like him. Flo, please let me know if you need a photographer for any of your projects as I too have a passion for this kind of work.

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  19. Amazing. I went to see it today. Just one vertical section of the house + its chimneys, standing.

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  20. This is beyond immoral. That the very history of this nation, is being ripped to the ground by money grubbing low life creatures, should be illegal! Why isn't it? Why is it that history such as this, can be so easily destroyed??? How do we boycott this man and his projects? This is insane, and heartbreaking.

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  21. Fascinating photos. I was so interested in seeing the interior of the house before it was heartlessly demolished. It all symbolizes that we're a throw-away, tear-down society.

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  22. The new Great Gatsby will be shot in Australia...hmmmmmm, I wonder why.

    Thank you, Jen Ross and others who help guide us through the preservation and experience of who we are.

    You are the lighthouse through the fog.

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  23. I've shared your fabulous work on Pinterest -- http://pinterest.com/larrytenney/everything-gatsby/

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  24. Why do we continue to destroy the past when there is so much to be learned from it ?
    Sad to think that there is more power in money than in people who know and care.

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  25. Thank you for the wonderful pictures, your artistic approach is wonderful. I held this mansion together until VKP put it up for sale. It was an honor.

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