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A SHORT TRIP ON LONG ISLAND: |
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Spring, for some, is a time to dream of tropical islands; for others
to plan next summer's vacation. They don't need to go abroad, however,
to find one island -- and it's easily explored. Long Island is only
125 miles long, and its serene, white sand and lazy beaches lie
only an hour's drive from the most dynamic city in the world. |
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 Long Island can be everything: raucous and razzamatazz like Manhattan itself. It can be urbane, polished, even pretentious as in the Hamptons, the sophisticated settlements on the south shore of South Fork. It can be naive, simple and old world in the sleepy potato fields and fishing villages of North Fork. Long Island is F. Scott Fitzgerald mansions flamboyant with Gatsby glory; magnificent museums endowed by Vanderbilts, Chryslers and Guggenheims; great gardens that grew because their owners, or God, knew ideal locations for dogwood and day lilies, crab apples and cherries, asters and azaleas-and roses, and magnolias and quince. |
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The mansions scattered along the northwest coast were made by the money from the Industrial Revolution. At one time, their owners' names would have graced the pages of the Congressional Record and the Wall Street Journal. Today they might appear in the New York Post and People magazine. |
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At Old Westbury Gardens (516-333-0048 oldwestburygardens.org) John S.Phipps of U.S. Steel recreated an 18th century English country estate, decorated with Constables, Gainsboroughs and Raeburns, and filled it with English antiques. William Robertson Coe, the insurance magnate, built an even larger estate, Planting Fields, to the north (516-922-8600 plantingfields.org) with one of the finest rhododendron and azalea displays in the East. |
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Nearby Teddy Roosevelt rides again at Sagamore Hill. His personal effects lie in glorious disarray and clutter in the simple home which became the nation's summer White House in 1901 (516-922-4788 nps.gov). Every room smacks of his effusive and flamboyant personality. Indeed, says a park ranger, "His greatest attribute was his ability to mix with commoners or kings." |
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