"Kidd's Rocks"/"Keewaydin"/"Land's End"/"Seagate" (Sands Point, New York)

 residence, LIGC - Long Island Gold Coast, historical layer / disappeared object, Colonial Revival (architecture)

Former estate of "Kidd's Rocks"/"Keewaydin"/"Land's End"/"Seagate" designed c. 1911 by Oscar Bluemner in the Colonial Revival style as a summer home for John Scott Browning Sr., 20,000+ square-foot, 25-room clapboard manor house originally named Kidd's Rocks. Browning was treasurer at Browning, King & Co., the family's clothing merchant business. Purchased in 1921 by Malcolm D. Sloane, whose wife renamed the estate "Keewaydin".

Bought in 1928 by journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, one of the first recipients of the Pulitzer Prize and, later, editor of the New York World. Swope held many lavish parties there, as he did at his previously rented home on East Shore Road in Great Neck, hosting the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Winston Churchill, Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx and Conde Nast. The world of Swope (who was sometimes known as "Swope of the World") was a glamorous one. Born in New York City in 1882, Swope was an inveterate gambler and aggressive reporter. In 1917, as an energetic reporter for the New York World, Herbert Bayard Swope won the first Pulitzer Prize for reporting, for a series entitled "Inside the German Empire." He later became the editor of the paper and, over the years, was a confidante to actors, writers and presidents. More that just socialially renowned, Swope amassed a personal fortune by following the advice of his many prominent friends in business.

Terry Allen Kramer, daughter of Charles Allen Jr., founder of the investment house Allen & Company, bought the estate and lived there with her husband through the 1970's. They did a major renovation prior to moving in. In 1983 estate was bought by Charles Shipman Payson, the attorney who inherited ownership of the New York Mets from his first wife Joan Whitney Payson after her death in 1975. The Payson's had their estate in Manhasset for many years. Charles had remarried to Virginia Kraft in 1977. He died in 1985, but Virginia Kraft Payson continued to own Lands End. In 2001, she put it on the market for a startling $50 million. The price was later halved, and the estate was eventually put on the auction block and purchased for $17 million by Bert Brodsky in 2004, a Long Island businessman/developer who drew up a subdivision plan. The colonial mansion on 10+ acres had remained intact, though was completely neglected and finally demolished in April 2011. The five home Seagate development will now be built.

The estate was often believed to be one of the many gold coast homes that served as inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's fictional home in The Great Gatsby, but that is generally speculation, as Swope did not move there until after the novel was written. The grounds featured a seven-car garage, a tennis court with a tennis pavilion, pool and pool house, dance floor, rose garden and separate guest house.

www.oldlongisland.com/2011/03/kidds-rockslands-end.html
archive.org/details/discoveringsands0000kent/page/110/m...
books.google.com/books?id=D_u7mGX21kMC&pg=PA7&l...
digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/ryr/id/28...
www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=2&lon=-73...
www.oldlongisland.com/2011/04/lands-end-demolition-most...
www.oldlongisland.com/2011/04/kidds-rockslands-end.html
hwww.oldlongisland.com/2011/03/kidds-rockslands-end_24.h...
www.oldlongisland.com/2011/03/kidds-rockslands-end_29.h...
www.oldlongisland.com/2011/03/kidds-rockslands-end.html
www.chrisbain.com/landsend
www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/will-the-real-great...



www.youtube.com/watch?v=lloRHG2Eh0w