West and East Egg, on the northern shore of Long Island, are thought to be disguised versions of Great Neck and Manor Haven/Sands Point, both famous in the Jazz Age for wealth and luxury. Far enough outside the bustle of New York City, here the wealthy could have their space and waterfront views.

"It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York - and where there are,among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the nost domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemispere,the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals - like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end - but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead."

 Lands End in Long Island, which is considered to be the inspiration for Tom and Daisy Buchanan`s East Egg house ( demolished in 2011)

 Beacon Towers is considered to be inspiration for Jay Gatsby`s extravagent West Egg nouveau riche house (demolished in the 1940s).

Beacon Towers was a Gilded Age mansion that was situated on Sands Point in the village of Sands Point on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. It was designed by Hunt & Hunt, formed by the partnership of Richard Morris Hunt’s sons Richard and Joseph. It was the last house on Long Island to be designed by the firm.

Architectural historians have described the mansion as a pure Gothic fantasy, although it did owe some of its design elements to the alcazars of Spain and to depictions of castles in medieval illuminated manuscripts. The interior contained approximately 60 primary rooms and upwards of 140 in total. 

The mansion is thought by literary scholars to have played a part in the inspiration for the home of Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald described Gatsby’s mansion in the book as:

"A factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin bead of raw ivy, and marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of land."

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7363006n

 Serena Altschul visits the house that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's great American novel "The Great Gatsby" to discuss its storied past with owner Bert Brodsky and what may become of the land after the house is knocked down having being beaten beyond repair by the Long Island sound.