On Saturday, a Long Island developer made good on his promise to demolish Land's End, the Gold Coast estate said to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. CBS News was there to catch the gruesome act on camera and interviewed owner and developer Bert Brodsky, who waxed poetic about the house and its history just minutes before a metal claw tore through the fine woodwork. The grand columned mansion had certainly seen better days—as a set of old listing photos revealed last month can attest—and Brodsky says he and his son had "no choice" but to demolish the aging summer cottage. The dilapidated home languished on the market, priced at $30M, before the father-son duo decided to redevelop the 13-acre property into five luxury homes priced at $10M a piece, so their claims of poverty are a little shaky at best. Get all the history, demolition footage, and developer grandstanding in the video, after the jump.
· The end of an era for the "Gatsby house" [CBS News]
· The Great Gatsby house's storied past (VIDEO) [CBS News]
· Gatsby House: Really Old Listing Photos Reveal Former Grandeur [Curbed National]
· Gatsby House to Become True "Valley of the Ashes" Development [Curbed National]
· All "Gatsby house" coverage [Curbed National]
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