Long Island Oasis That Upstaged Movie Stars

by Will Pavia, New York

Groton Place on the Gold Coast is being auctioned by Sotheby’sTYLER SANDS/SANDS MEDIA HOUSE

Groton Place on the Gold Coast is being auctioned by Sotheby’s

TYLER SANDS/SANDS MEDIA HOUSE

The manor lies on Long Island’s Gold Coast, where it is among the last of its kind. Set in a hundred acres of woods and meadows, the grand Georgian mansion has been used in a host of film and TV shows, for it is only 23 miles from midtown Manhattan but looks like another world.

Luis Rinaldini recalls the first time he saw it. He found an estate agent in a Land Rover festooned with balloons who told him it was to be carved up into 25 lots for new homes. “I thought: ‘I don’t want to buy a piece of this and then end up with 24 neighbours,’” he said. “I bought the whole thing.”

The estate was assembled by the scion of the Winthrop banking dynasty at the turn of the 20th centuryTYLER SANDS/SANDS MEDIA HOUSE

The estate was assembled by the scion of the Winthrop banking dynasty at the turn of the 20th century

TYLER SANDS/SANDS MEDIA HOUSE

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