A Great Gatsby Garden: The Lavish Long Island Estate That Inspired The Movie's Sets
May 14th, 2013 at 10:39 AM
There was a girl who grew up in the Phipps mansion on Long Island's Gold Coast and she was named Margaret but she went by Peggie, and she married young and divorced. Her second marriage lasted longer and after her parents died, in the 1950s, she moved with her husband—a French diplomat, of course—into a smaller house on the estate, a comparatively modest white clapboard house called Orchard Hill. Much of the rest of the grounds, including 70 acres of gardens, she decided to open to the public.
Peggie Phipps Boegner created a non-profit conservancy to oversee Old Westbury Gardens and then lived the rest of her life on the grounds, dying at home at age 99. Hers was a life F. Scott Fitzgerald would have recognized. In fact, he may have known her, as he and Zelda lived in. . .
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