Hawk's Nest, the cliff road along the Delaware, is a long way from here. In the early twentieth century this part of the island was the Gold Coast, where the families of bankers and industrialists built mansions with lawns that ran down to the shore, and F. Scott Fitzgerald lived at Great Neck in the 1920s and drew on the area for the world of Gatsby, with its East Egg and West Egg.
Some of the grand houses survive. At Sands Point Preserve, a stone castle built in the 1900s, modelled on a castle in Ireland, and a larger mansion, Hempstead House, stand on a wooded peninsula, with walking trails through forest and along a pebble beach. At Kings Point, the United States Merchant Marine Academy trains officers for the merchant fleet, on a campus that was once the estate of Walter Chrysler. The sailing clubs and marinas of Manorhaven and Port Washington give the area a nautical feel, and the water is busy with small boats on summer weekends.
The riding on Long Island's north shore is on tree-lined parkways and winding two-lane roads, with low stone walls and old oaks, and then busy arterials with stoplights. Traffic can be thick, particularly at rush hour and on summer weekends, and the state parkways ban commercial vehicles, which gives them a sedate, almost parklike character, with stone bridges that have very low clearance. Roads are patched and cracked after winter, and police patrol the speed limits. The air is humid in July and August, and autumn light on the oaks and maples is lovely.
Fuel is plentiful, with stations along Northern Boulevard, the main road, and in Great Neck and Port Washington, and unlike New Jersey you can pump your own on Long Island. A stop at a bagel shop or a deli for breakfast is an ordinary local habit, and the harbour at Port Washington has seafood restaurants overlooking the water. New York City is only about thirty minutes away.