In 1946 LIFE magazine went to the North Shore of Long Island to peep in on the lives, and the beautiful homes, of the ultra-rich. The Gold Coast, as the most exclusive stretch is known, was a place where many homes were more rightly called estates, and where lunch guests might be served by a butler who spoke three languages. Polo was a popular pastime, as was sailing, and even flying. One country club had an airplane hangar for the 25 members who kept planes there.
This rarefied playground was beautifully photographed by Nina Leen for an 11-page story in the July 22, 1946 issue of LIFE. The magazine called the North Shore “the most socially desirable residential area in the U.S.” and claimed that “nowhere else in such costly profusion can be found such great, handsome and scrupulously tended estates as those on the North Shore.”
The luminaries of the North Shore included the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, J.P. Morgan and F.W. Woolworth, among others. But despite the wealth of its residents and the grandeur of their estates, the magazine described the lifestyle there as “ordered, gracious, and, amid great luxury, basically simple.” The view of the North Shore in LIFE was unabashedly admiring, with the only question being, Could this paradise last?
They live with the unpretentious ease of a well-entrenched money class, busy with sports, hobbies and charities, surrounded by yachting trophies, etchings of dogs, silver mugs won on polo fields and portraits painted by fashionable artists. Their North Shore domain is assailed by the breakup of the very biggest estates and by encroachment along the edges by middle-class suburbia. Nevertheless the North Shore residents have just survived the heaviest taxation in their history and as long as they continue prudently to preserve their fortunes by frequent intermarriage, their handsome way of life seems likely to persist.
All these years later the Gold Coast is still a place of stature, but it is not unchanged. The Long Island Aviation Club of Long Island is no more, fading out in 1948. The Phipps residence, seen in the photos here, has been converted in a museum, Old Westbury Gardens, and it is one of many of the old estates to transition from private haven to public usage. The former home of William Robertson Coe, who was both a business titan and a noted horticulturist (Nina Leen photographed Coe inspecting the orchids in his greenhouse), is now part of Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park.
The magic of the Gold Coast at its peak is most famously memorialized in The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definitive portrait of aspiration in America takes place in fictionalized towns on the North Shore. Today you can still take a Gatsby Tour of the area’s historic mansions, and enjoy your views of these former castles.
The Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Golfers at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Thomas Bradley and his wife played golf at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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The Aviation Country Club in Hicksville, Long Island featured a hangar which housed 25 planes belonging to members and four other aircraft reserved for members who did not have their own, 1946.
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The North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Men lined up their sailboats at the starting line at the Seawanhaka yacht club, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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Sunbathers at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Dean of the North Shore, horsey set, F. Ambrose Clark, 1946.
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Polo player Stewart Iglehart, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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Michael Phipps (right) talking to a fellow polo player, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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Michael Grace Phipps, a polo player, outside the Meadow Brook Club in Westbury, Long Island, 1946.
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The gates to the estate of John Phipps, son of the partner of Andrew Carnegie, on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Wendy McCrary relaxed in La Granja, the art-filled North Shore home of her parents, 1946; her father, D.S. Iglehart, ran the Grace shipping line.
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Edgar Leonard (right) and his wife (center) hosted a luncheon at their home, with their longtime butlers, identified by LIFE with only their last names Smith and Froggart, and a note that Smith spoke three languages, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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The boxwood gardens at the Ogden L. Mills estate, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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The Ogden L. Mills estate on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney raised black Angus cattle on his 600-acre estate in Old Westbury, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, nee Eleanor Searle, at the reins of a horse buggy while her footman rode in the back, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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The North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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W.R. Coe looking over the orchids in his greenhouse with his estate superintendent on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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The front gated entrance to W.R. Coe’s estate; the gates were built in Sussex, England in 1720 and bought by Coe in 1921 from Lord Wittenham in 1921.
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The estate of W.R. Coe, an insurance, railroad and business executive, 1946; the home today is a museum and part of the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, N.Y..
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The playhouse of the Webb home in Westbury included a pool and mural of the North Shore scenery, 1946.
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Harry Webb plays indoor tennis on a court decorated with Native American carved wooden figures from his mother’s collection of Americana, Old Westbury, Long Island, N.Y. 1946.
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Mrs. H.I. Pratt walking through the pathway in her highly regarded gardens at her home on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y.; the Pratt family made its fortune through Standard Oil, 1946.
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A colonial style home in Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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Mrs. F. P. Garvan, the daughter of business tycoon Anthony N. Brady, admired a cocker spaniel along with her son and daughter-in-law, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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A home on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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The bathroom in a home on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
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A home in Long Island’s Gold Coast, 1946.
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This half-mile hedged walk was part of the Syosset home of banker and philanthropist Richard M. Tobin, 1946.
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North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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A hedged walkway down to the lake from a mansion on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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The home of stockbroker Edwin A. Fish in Locust Valley on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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A canopied bed covered in flower print from a North Shore estate, 1946.
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The living room of a North Shore estate, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Hand-painted trays adorned the walls of the North Shore home of Harvey Gibson, president of Manufacturers Trust bank, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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Mrs. Cyrus Newkick Johns, exiting the church with her husband after their wedding ceremony at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lattingtown on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
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