Overall, the data demonstrated a distinct lack of unity among Gold Coast Estates. Houses were built on small pieces of land and on large ones, by financiers, lawyers, architects, and retail giants. They were Georgian Revivals, Tudors, and eclectic styles, designed by 151 different architects. They’ve been demolished, repurposed, and lived in to this day.
If anything, these maps demonstrate that much like the estates, the people who built them were mixed as well. They were from generational wealth and new wealth, some much richer than others, and looking for ways to show off their power or simply build a home.
These conclusions are counter to the argument proposed by Michael McGerr in A Fierce Discontent, where he suggests that the homogenized elite class provided a rallying point for those of the lower class to demand change. McGerr is correct in asserting that cultural shifts during the Progressive Era did occur, but based on the estates created by the wealthy members of New York City they were a much more diverse group than McGerr gives them credit for. The evidence is more aligned with Sven Beckert’s arguments that wealth and culture were unifying forces for the Gilded Age elites, and the circumstances that wealth was acquired under mattered much less than the mere fact that one had wealth.
The number of houses that were built by the comparatively less wealthy also reinforces Clifton Hood’s arguments that the elites of the Gilded Age were looking to establish legitimacy via their money. Both during the early 20th century as well as today, houses and homeownership are seen as a goal one works to, or a way to demonstrate that you have “made it.” For people who were newly rich, building a Gold Coast estate appears to have been a way to establish themselves, as well as to give their status legitimacy. The proliferation of smaller estates as well as those built by people in the finance industry demonstrates that a Gold Coast home could serve as a status symbol that would allow one to flaunt their assets, while also providing them roots to begin building generational wealth.
Despite the relative diversity of these Gilded Age elites, the idea of the Gold Coast still lives on in our cultural memory as a unified picture. We think of this region the way F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed it; mega-rich people with outrageous wealth building beautiful, gigantic houses on the water, but that wasn’t the case for everyone. Gold Coast estates seemed to take many forms, but the legacy they leave is much more unified. This might be due to Gatsby or because the stately mansions of the mega-wealthy are the most notable, but regardless it seems that the legacy of the Gold Coast Era is much more complicated than it first appears.
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