Friday, October 12, 2012

Beacon Towers, The Alva Belmont Estate, NY


Beacon Towers was a large, castle like estate, built for the Women's rights campaigner Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. Alva had been married to the enormously wealthy William K. Vanderbilt, but divorced him for her second husband, Oliver Belmont. On Belmont's death, Alva had the architectural firm of Hunt & Hunt build a massive estate on Long Island, which she would name Beacon Towers. Toward the end of her life, Mrs. Belmont began to sell her many properties. Brookholt (click HERE for more), her estate also on Long Island in 1915, her townhouse at 477 Madison Avenue (click HERE for more) in 1923 and later on her Newport estate, Belcourt Castle (click HERE for more). Finally she sold Beacon Towers in 1927 to William R. Hearst. The estate was eventually demolished into a pile of rubble.

14 comments:

  1. Was said to be the inspiration for Gatsby's home and if you read the books description and not just watch the movie versions, this is very close. The waterfront setting was also dramatic.

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  2. I notice that no mention anywhere online is the name of the person who bought Beacon Towers from Hearst, and then demolished it. I’ve done searches under all sorts of search phrases and nobody seems to know who committed this travesty.

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