top of page
HISTORY
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, situated everything that was aspirational in a big-moneyed enclave called East Egg on the North Shore of Long Island.
Fitzgerald’s inspiration for East Egg was Sands Point, a village at the tip of the Port Washington peninsula, about 25 miles east of Manhattan. The name of the village derives not from its sandy fringe but Capt. John Sands, who arrived from Block Island in 1695 and bought 500 acres on the peninsula’s tip.
A convenient alternative to Newport, this was where Jazz Age Hearsts, Harrimans, and Guggenheims sealed themselves off from urban heat and dust in sybaritic summer palaces at the water’s edge.
LOCATION
Situated on the tip of the Port Washington peninsula along the North Shore of Long Island, the village of Sands Point has attracted well-to-do New Yorkers for decades.
The village, which was incorporated in 1910, is about 45 minutes (in light traffic) from Manhattan.
It is bordered almost entirely by water - Long Island Sound to the North, Manhasset Bay to the West, and Hempstead Harbor on the East. To the South is Port Washington, an unincorporated area of several villages.
bottom of page