The Great Gatsby's Mansion - Julia Kennedy

The Great Gatsby is a novel that was published in 1925 based in the 1920’s Jazz age or best known as the roarin’ twenties by author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is set in Long Island, New York and features characters who live the lifestyle that captured the extravagance and lavishness of the Roaring Twenties, a time of great social and economic change in America, particularly within the upper part of American society. The characters like Jay Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, and their social circle lived in a world of tremendous wealth. Their lifestyle was marked by outrageously extravagant mansions, fancy parties, luxurious clothes, and an abundance of possessions. Gatsby's mansion, in particular, symbolized excessive wealth and prosperity.

In “The Great Gatsby” the characters live on different sides of the Long Island peninsula, separated into what’s called East and West Egg. East Egg is home to the old money rich who are inherited and established elite like Tom and Daisy Buchanan while West Egg is home to the new money rich who are known as aspiring to achieve highway social status like Jay Gatsby. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway who recently moves to West Egg but he is not rich like Gatsby or most others in the area, but his cousin is Daisy who lives in East Egg so he has some connections and gets both parties from the Eggs together. Through being neighbors with Gatsby, Nick learns that Gatsby had a relationship with Daisy years ago but he went off to fight in World War 1, and in between that time she got married to Tom, but Gatsby is still deeply in love with her so he moved to West Egg and got a giant mansion in hopes that she would come to one of his parties one day and to impress her especially since Daisy’s current husband is Tom who is very old money rich from East Egg. Gatsby’s deep love he still has for Daisy dictates his decisions in the story because even though he is a insanely wealthy man and could afford to do whatever he pleases, what he chooses to do is decide to buy a house only because it is across from where Daisy is and throw his extravagant parties in hopes to catch her attention and one day show up there.





Visual of Gatsby's Parties




This shows that Gatsby’s house represents his emptiness and desire for love because even though the parties he throws at his mansion are filled with an abundance of guests and performers and he does enjoy his wealthy lifestyle, the main purpose for him doing all of this was for Daisy and not for himself. He can buy anything he wants from the giant mansion with the fancy paintings and sculptures that fill it, but he can’t buy love, which is a direct correlation between Gatsby and his mansion. Even though there is an abundance of people that fill up his mansion during parties, his guests are still unsure of who he is as Gatsby frequently acts secretive and disconnected from the action during his parties. Although many of the guests at his parties are fascinated by Gatsby, few are familiar with his background or the source of his wealth. Gatsby keeps his identity a secret by avoiding the party and spectacle most of the time, which heightens the mystery surrounding his character. He gives off a mysterious and distant vibe because he is seen watching rather than actively taking part in the celebrations. Gatsby’s desire for only Daisy further isolates him from others as he doesn’t even desire to maintain any actual connections with the people he invites into his house further demonstrating that his mansion serves as a way of him being isolated from everyone else, especially because he uses the size of his mansion as an advantage to be able to hide himself from guests. Gatsby uses his mansion to isolate himself and also uses his mansion to try to get to Daisy. Gatsby and his mansion are one in the same because even though they are both grand and lavish on the outside, the inside is extremely isolated and dependent on expensive luxuries to fill the void.


Hotel de Ville



In the book. Nick describes Gatsby’s mansion as “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”(Fitzgerald 22). Hôtel de Ville is a real building which serves as a city hall in France but is still extremely extravagant. So from Nick’s perspective that is what it reminds him of but it is actually based off of a mansion that’s actually in Long Island where the story is based called Harbor Hill. It was built in 1899 and was very expensive and lavish just like Gatsby’s mansion, but unfortunately didn’t last long as it was vandalized in WW2 and demolished in 1947. Another mansion that served as inspiration for Fitzgerald was Oheka Castle, also residing in Long Island. It was built in 1914 and is still standing today, but not as a residence anymore. It was built for a wealthy philanthropist named Kahn and is the second-largest private residence ever built in North America which shows how giant Gatsby’s mansion is compared to since it was inspired by this mansion. In the late 1900’s it was abandoned and near destruction until it was bought to restoration in the 80’s and it is now a hotel and popular wedding venue for celebrities and backdrops for movies and television. Even though these real life mansions were residences for wealthy people during the time period like Gatsby’s mansion, the fact that they are either ceasing to exist or used solely as venues for events and photoshoots show that these mansions aren’t necessary to be a house because it’s extravagance doesn’t determine happiness as Gatsby’s mansion didn’t serve him happiness but more as isolation. People aren’t even living there anymore it is used solely as tourism and a prop for the most part which shows that wealth is an object and does not determine happiness, because at the end of the day no one lives in there, it is not a space that people call home, especially how giant and unnecessary it is for people to reside in.


Harbor Hill




Oheka Castle



Gatsby’s mansion and the parties are a facade to cover up his loneliness and desire for love. Gatsby lives alone and the only other people who live there are his servants and their purpose is to get paid to serve for him, so Gatsby is really isolated from others and his mansion is a representation of him, full of extreme wealth but empty inside because there’s no love. A house serves as a structure for people to have shelter and live in, but a home is where people live and also have a specific attachment and intimate relationship to where they live, but I don’t believe that Gatsby’s mansion represents a home because he doesn’t seem to have a specific attachment to his mansion at all and what he does with it isn’t even for him specifically, it’s to be near Daisy and to seem extravagant during his parties.




In conclusion, the lifestyle portrayed in "The Great Gatsby "focused on materialism and wealth as pleasure used as a way to fill the void in Gatsby’s life. The enormous size of Gatsby's mansion serves as an exterior for his emotional emptiness and inner loneliness. Gatsby maintains an appearance of emotional distance and isolation despite his public display of wealth and social class.




Works Cited

Danaparamita, A. (2016, February 8). The Great Gatsby Mansions: National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Great Gatsby Mansions | National Trust for Historic Preservation. https://savingplaces.org/stories/the-great-gatsby-mansions-real-life-homes-that-inspired-the-book-and-film




​​Kroplick, Howard. “Harbor Hill Country Home (Estate of Clarence Mackay) | Profiles.” Roslyn Landmark Society, https://www.roslynlandmarks.org/profiles/harbor-hill-estate. Accessed 1 November 2023.




Lipton, Gabrielle. Where is the real Jay Gatsby mansion from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby?, 6 May 2013, https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/05/where_is_the_real_jay_gatsby_mansion_from_f_scott_fitzgerald_s_the_great.html. Accessed 1 November 2023.