Growing up in the Fitzgeralds’ Connecticut Home

Elyse Graham’s article “How Princetonians Saved The Great Gatsby” was of particular interest to me. I had recently viewed the documentary Gatsby in Connecticut: The Untold Story, and I grew up in the house on South Compo Road in Westport, Connecticut, where Scott and Zelda summered in 1920. The house is situated on property bordering a golf course whose clubhouse is an imposing turn-of-the-century building with a lawn stretching down to Long Island Sound. From the house I lived in, it’s a short walk across the fairways to that clubhouse. In the ’20s the clubhouse and the 175 acres that eventually became the golf course were the home and estate of tycoon Frederick E. Lewis. The documentary includes a number of pictures showing Scott and Zelda at parties on the grounds of the Lewis property and it makes a compelling case that the estate, its flamboyant owner, and the extravagant parties that occurred there were the inspiration for The Great Gatsby, even pointing out that, from the beach in front of the clubhouse, one can view green lights on the far shore.

I’ve often speculated about the wild parties that must have taken place in our house during the Fitzgeralds’ occupancy. For me, growing up in the ’40s and ’50s, it was a safe, comfortable home. Perhaps it was just recuperating after the tumultuous events of the summer of 1920.