Wrecking ball meets Gatsby mansion

A Colonial-style mansion on Long Island Sound that some say was the inspiration for parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," a novel of Jay Gatsby's boom-and-bust 1920s, is set to be torn down and the land divided into several multi-million dollar home sites, according to stories in the New York Post and Newsday. After a rich social and literary history, Lands End - a once-grand 25-room mansion - is now dilapidated and empty. The property is along a stretch of shoreline called "The Gold Coast" where many once-grand gilded-age manses have fallen victim to tough economic times and have met the same fate as Lands End.

The owner of the house bought it in 2004 for $17.5 million and disputes claims that it was the inspiration for the novel, but says that it costs upwards of $4,000 a day to maintain the property.

Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, where he lived for several years at various times. The stage version of "Gatsby" got its world premiere in Minneapolis in 2006 to commemorate the opening of the new Guthrie Theater building along the Mississippi River.