One of the many Gold Coast mansions that lays claim to be the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gapsby, the 140-room Beacon House in Sands Point was built from 1918 for Alva Belmont, the ex-wife of William K. Vanderbilt.
Belmont was a involved in the women’s suffragist movement and once ran a girl’s farm school at her mansion.
William Randolph Hearst purchased the mansion from Belmont in 1927. Three years after Hearst sold it in 1942, Beacon Towers was demolished. You can see where the gilded mansion used to stand on Google Earth here.
Unknown author / Public domain
Harris & Ewing, photographer / Public domain.
