Image from the museum website.
According to the website, most of the museum’s grounds were originally owed by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), long time editor of the New York Evening Post, and also a poet, lawyer, conservationist, political activist, and patron of the arts. In 1900, Lloyd Stephens Bryce purchased Bryant's Upland Farm and commissioned the architect and tastemaker Ogden Codman to design a neo-Georgian mansion on an elevated site overlooking Hempstead Harbor, now Nassau County Museum of Art. Bryce is best known as editor and owner of The North American Review, a forum for international opinion on social, political, and cultural affairs. In 1969, the estate was purchased by Nassau County to establish the Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, administered by the county’s Office of Cultural Development. The historic mansion has since been restored. and renamed the Arnold and Joan Saltzman Fine Arts Building.
The formal garden and landscaped grounds often serves as the backdrop for fashion shoots, television commercials, celebrity interviews, movie productions, and more. It is also a popular spot for wedding photography.
Old Westbury Gardens is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the former home of John S. Phipps and his family. According to the website, the Charles II-style mansion was built in 1906 and is nestled amid 200 acres of formal gardens, landscaped grounds, woodlands, ponds and lakes. Westbury House is furnished with fine English antiques and decorative arts from the more than fifty years of the family's residence.
Now Old Westbury Gardens welcomes visitors for guided tours, in-depth tours of the formal gardens, school visits, children's programs and many other events.
Image from the New York State Parks website.
Built around 1810, the West Hills farmhouse was the birthplace of American poet, Walt Whitman in 1819. The house was restored in 2001 and according to the website serves as a fine example of native Long Island craftsmanship.
Image from National Park Service website. [https://www.nps.gov]
William Floyd was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Revolutionary War general. He was born in the home in 1734. The estate preserves centuries of American history. According to the website, visitors can explore the 25-room "Old Mastic House" and the grounds, including twelve outbuildings, the family cemetery, and 613 acres of forest, fields, marsh, and trails. The Old Mastic House contains a variety of architectural features and artifacts from three centuries of American life, the story of the family, and their use and enjoyment of this place. The estate was donated to Fire Island National Seashore in 1965.
Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
Dmadeo [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]
The home, built in 1879, is typical of the 19th century farmers’ and fishermen’s homes in Springs, a hamlet in the Town of East Hampton, according to the website. The house served as the home of Jackson Pollack and his wife Lee Krasner two of America’s greatest artists. It contains all the furnishings and artifacts that were in the house at the time of Krasner’s death in 1984, some of which were there during Pollock’s lifetime. Visitors can still see paint splashes on the studio floor that Jackson used for his famous abstract paintings, along with rotating exhibits.
Image: OhekaCastleNY [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
This is a magnificent Gold Coast Mansion on the highest point of Long Island. According to its website, the castle has been celebrating the art of entertaining since 1919, when financier and patron of the arts, Otto Hermann Kahn, had the palatial country residence built to accommodate his fondness to host lavish parties. While the hotel is noted for prestigious weddings and events limited guided tours of the estate and formal gardens are available. Some famous movies have been filmed at Oheka Castle including, Citizen Kane (1941), The Emperors Club (2002), and The Great Gatsby Documentary (2000).
The Shrine of Our Lady of the Island
Image courtesy of The Shrine of Our Lady of Long Island.
Called a “hidden gem on the east end of Long Island.” On the way to the Hamptons, you should not miss out on the beautiful grounds featuring a version of the Pieta, the outdoor shrine, and many other religious sites to see. According to a representative, the grounds are open to the public and the buildings themselves are open until about 3:45 pm.
Public domain image from Wikipedia. Gyrofrog [Public domain]
According to their website, The Sands Point Preserve is located on the original Guggenheim Estate and “embodies the grandeur and elegance that define the Gold Coast period of the early 20th century, when prominent American families built great mansions on large estates as summer retreats along the Long Island Sound.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” East Egg stood in for the real Sands Point. Now, the 216-acre park, including its historic mansions, is owned by Nassau County. Visitors are able to enjoy freshwater ponds, rolling fields, nature trails that wonder through the woods, walk over century-old stone bridges, a view of the Castle Gould, Hempstead House, Falaise, a Gatsby-era country homes that is the embodiment of Long Island's Gold Coast era.
Many famous television shows were shot at the Preserve including, Billions, Gotham, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The Blacklist, Boardwalk Empire and Royal Pains. Films shot on the grounds include, Scent of a Woman. The website says that the bedroom in Harry F. Guggenheim’s French Norman manor, Falaise, was the setting for the famed horse head scene from The Godfather in 1972.
