The Kings Point estate said to have been the inspiration for the West Egg mansion in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has sold, according to a press release by the real estate firm that listed the property.
The price has not yet been made public. Neither has the name of the buyer.
John Handler last owned the home, known as the Brickman estate. Handler was found dead there in 2008; he was 57. His wife, Jennifer Eley-Handler, who was principal pianist for the Long Island Philharmonic, died two years earlier in an accident.
On the market since September 2010, the 20-acre property was most recently listed for $39.5 million. The deal was brokered by Diane Polland, a sales associate in the Great Neck office of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.
Set privately at the tip of the peninsula, the estate is supposed to be the last remaining mid-19th-century North Shore mansion on Long Island. With more than 1,600 feet of waterfront, the property offers panoramic views of the New York City skyline, Long Island Sound and Manhasset Bay. There is a main residence as well as nine other residential buildings.
One of its earliest owners was John Alsop King Jr., the namesake of Kings Point. He hired A.J. Davis to design the stucco mansion, which was built in the early 1850s. In 1913, the estate was sold to Richard Church, heir to Church Dwight Co., the makers of Arm Hammer baking soda. It was Church who threw Gatsby-esque summer parties, though it’s unclear whether Fitzgerald was ever a guest.
The grounds feature 60,000 square feet of gardens as well as a koi pond, a pool, a terrace and rolling lawns that encircle the property.
