21 East Lane, Chilmark

This beautiful house at Stonewall Beach is sitting high on a bluff with breathtaking water-views toward the Atlantic Ocean, Stonewall Pond and Stonewall Beach. This signature home is often called the Great Gatsby Estate.

About 5 years ago I met an English actor, John Hannah, and his wife who were visiting Martha's Vineyard over the Columbus Day week-end to attend the wedding of a friend at this magnificent property. Early Saturday morning I met John and his wife at Espresso Love in Edgartown, while we were both having coffee -  I knew he looked familiar, but little did I know that he starred in one of my favorite all time movies, Four Weddings and a Funeral.

As happens many times in October, the Vineyard was being pounded by a powerful nor'easter which dumped inordinate amounts of rain on the island that week-end. But John informed me the next morning, that the storm didn't hinder the wedding festivities at all -  after all, he starred in a movie about four crazy weddings, nothing could throw him!

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by the great American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book takes place from spring to autumn 1922, during a prosperous time in the United States known as the Roaring Twenties.

The orginal book cover.                  Oheka Castle - partial inspiration for Gatsby's Estate.

After the birth of their first child, the Fitzgeralds moved to Great Neck, Long Island in October 1922, a setting used as the scene for the Great Gatsby. Fitsgerald's neighbors In Great Neck included such prominent and newly wealthy New Yorkers as writer Ring Lardner, actor Lew Fields and comedian Ed Wynn. These figures were all considered to be 'new' money, unlike those who came from Manhasset Neck or Cow Neck Peninsula, places were home to many of New York's wealthiest established families, and which sat across a bay from The Great Neck. This real - life juxtaposition gave Fitzgerald this idea for "West Egg" and "East Egg".

The cover of the Great Gatsby is among the most celebrated pieces of jacket art in American literature. A little - known artist named Francis Cugat was commissioned to illustrate the book while Fitzgerald was in the midst of writing it. The cover was completed before the novel, with Fitzgerald so enamored of it that he told his publisher he had "written it into" the novel.

I'm sorry to say that this great estate is being auctioned on January 4, 2013. It will be a great buy for some lucky person.

The Great Gatspy House/ 21 East Lane, Chilmark