North Shore Long Island
Country Houses, 1890-1950 
By Paul J. Mateyunas
Suburban Domestic Architecture series
9 x 12 inches, 368 pp.
Over 400 duotone photographs and floor plans
Cloth, dust jacket
ISBN 0-926494-37-6
ISBN-13 978-0-926494-37-4
April 2007
From the age of the diamond stickpin and the Gibson Girl to a time of bathtub gin and flappers, along the North Shore of Long Island larger-than-life characters seemed to stride across a magical and privileged world of well-dressed men and glamorous women, sipping cocktails, smoking cigarettes in long holders, and dwelling deliciously on details of the latest scandal. Long Island in its heyday has been celebrated in literature, onstage, and onscreen; there never was, and never will be, another place quite like it.
North Shore Long Island: Country Houses, 1890–1950 covers 40 of the region's most noted homes, representing the breadth and variety of architectural design and the social and sporting life that characterized the North Shore in its golden age. Each estate covered in the book was carefully chosen; many are written about in detail for the first time. Scarce source information, much of it provided by heirs of the original estate families, clarifies incomplete or misleading information offered by other books on the subject.
Each estate is illustrated with both exterior and interior views of the residence, the outbuildings for service and sport, and lushly landscaped grounds that made Long Island famous.
The volume also includes a portfolio of over 40 houses, and the biographies of individual architects.
FROM THE PRESS
"Mateyunas is able to recreate a stroll through each home by way of descriptions of the interiors and their majestic features, impeccable materials and craftsmanship, works of art and furnishings..." —At Home LI
"Every sentence is packed with information about how mansions came about—the furnishings, who did what to further develop the home, and what the houses and grounds look like now or how they are currently used." —Newsday
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