As I learned while working on this project, the history of Long Island’s Gold Coast is complex, nuanced, and deserves more attention than this project was capable of. The following are several areas that would benefit from future research.
First, tracking later estate owners as well as the original financiers would provide insights into how and when these estates changed hands. Doing this work would allow one to better understand the effects of the Great Depression, World War II, and the suburbanization of Long Island on its Gold Coast estates.
In a similar vein, studying the size of the estates over time would also be an interesting way to see how the financial situations of the wealthy changed. Based on the records available it seems that many estates got smaller as time went on, but there were several that added to their acreage following the Great Depression. This might be due to cheaper land prices or the owner working in an industry unaffected by the economic collapse, but studying how and why the size of the estates changed would also demonstrate the influence of external versus internal factors on the status of these homes.
On-the-ground research could also be done to fill in holes in the data, such as accurately determining the current status of a home or filling in missing acreage information. This would increase the quality of the data and help fill in the “unknowns” that can make it difficult to find patterns in categories such as the acreage.
Finally, at the core of this project are the people who built homes and lived in these areas. A more in-depth look at the inhabitants of the North Shore could give better insights into how they affected culture at large, the development of Long Island, and our perceptions of this time period. Looking at census information, staff lists for larger estates, and other sociologic data could prove more definitively how estate owners impacted and contributed to Long Island’s development in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Data accuracy and feedback
The data included in this project is to the best of my knowledge correct. Since not all of the historic sources are verified, however, there is a chance that some information might not be entirely accurate. Additionally, information about the current status of an estate could change with time. I welcome feedback and edits on data reliability, which can be sent to ecarr4@ur.rochester.edu.
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