The 10-bedroom, "Land's End" estate on 14 acres at the western tip of Sands Point, Long Island is being demolished, "a colossal relic from the long-gone Gold Coast," according to a fine and long article by Nate Freeman in today's edition of observer.com.

"On the farthest edge of Sands Point, L.I., the house known as Lands End stood wind-battered and decrepit, its face scarred from years of relentless salty gusts ripping off the top of Long Island Sound. In its last days it lingered there on the shore, barely past the water....They say it was the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's house in The Great Gatsby," according to the article.

"Yet if Lands End could be seen today by the eyes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, he would squint in a lack of recognition. Soon he would squint and see nothing at all. Developers have already begun pummeling away at the column-bedecked palace to make space for a five-home subdivision. Goodbye, Gatsby; hello, Seagate at Sands Point. It's the climax of years of bitter squabbling and debate, fights that pitted owners past and present at each others' throats. The commodification of the Jazz Age legacy has been a boon to Great Neck developers for ages, but as Lands End goes, so goes an era of Long Island real estate. It's the death knell for a rot that began in the 1930s, when Robert Moses' freeways delivered the shabby masses to what had been a millionaires' playground," the article continued.

"The house," the article added, however, "it turns out, actually has nothing to do with The Great Gatsby. There's no firm evidence Fitzgerald ever visited. Lands End doesn't match the description of the Buchanan household as described by Nick Carraway. No cheerful red-and-white Georgian mansion. No French windows. No sundial-jumping lawn rolling right off the beach....The house lies on the other side of the peninsula, making it impossible to see from Gatsby's presumed abode in Great Neck."

Nevertheless, the article is quick to add, "the myth still persists and, in a way, it supersedes the truth."

Virginia Kraft Payson sold the property "to Burt Brodsky, the man who arranged for its demolition, in 2005, for $17.5 million. The original asking price was $50 million. Ms. Payson's rules of negotiation were firm: She did not want the acreage split into new houses. 'They misrepresented themselves,' Ms. Payson told The Observer, reached on her horse-racing ranch in Kentucky. 'I would not show it to any developer. He said that his life's ambition was to live in that manor, but it was very clear at the closing that they had no intention of living in it.'" Ms. Payson, a thoroughbred breeder who runs a training center called Payson Stud, lived in the house for 23 years. She kindled its hearth long after the death of her husband, New York Mets owner Charles Shipman Payson. And since she relinquished ownership of the house to Mr. Brodsky and his son, David, Ms. Payson has become increasingly bitter over their decision to raze it," according to the article.

"Not that anyone's noticed. In their coverage of the destruction of the house on Hoffstots Lane, the New York Post and Newsday both referred to her as 'the late' Ms. Payson," the article said.

"It was in pristine condition when I left," Ms. Payson said. "He let it fall apart."

Bert Brodsky's dissenting opinion is that Ms. Payson is delusional, vain or both.

After one grueling string of parties at Lands End a hung-over [Dorothy Parker coughed up this threat: "I wouldn't go back to the Swopes' to see King Kong unzip his fly." The lawn witnessed croquet matches between Harpo Marx and Harold Ross; meetings between John Hay Whitney and David O. Selznick that secured funding for Gone With the Wind; pre-dinner jaunts with Edward and Wallis, Duke and Duchess of Windsor; the re-creation of the life of Aristotle Onassis for the film The Greek Tycoon; and later photo shoots with Madonna and Kate Moss."