Everyday Canvas

Lighthouses and Mansions

Prompt: Have you ever been inside a mansion or a lighthouse?

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Yes, to both. Several times. I like lighthouses a lot, and mansions, well, it depends. Still, they both are inspirational to story writers and dreamers.

Since I have lived most of my earlier life on Long Island, NY, I’ll talk about the Montauk lighthouse, which is at the eastern tip of Long Island. It’s closed in winter and opens sometime in spring to public view. The times we visited it and then took our children were during the spring and summer.

Even when the weather is very warm, there is strong wind around it and not much vegetation. It is said to be the fourth lighthouse constructed in the US, first in New York State and was authorized originally by George Washington. The walls at its base are much thicker than at the top and it has iron steps spiraling to the top. Its light still flashes every five seconds and can be seen from afar. Its lookout point at the southwest looks to the Atlantic Ocean. Some people I knew were married there, as it hosts events like that. It has three small cottages for keepers and an oil house outside of the tower. There are meadows around it on what is called the Turtle hill, but not much of trees or bushes, possibly due to the salty fierce wind.

As to mansions, there are many of them on Long Island, even one at the Nassau County village of Kings Point, where Great Gatsby once reigned. This one is more than a mansion as it’s as huge as a castle, although only on eight acres. I heard it was on sale for 100 million, but that was last year. I don’t know if anyone bought it. Anything you wish for is in it: a two-story dollhouse, wine tasting room, hair salon, saunas, indoor pools, racquetball court, a gym, Turkish baths, steam and spa-treatment rooms. I couldn’t even begin to describe it as it is magnificent, stately, and a bit grandiose, and I especially loved the statues at the lowest level.

Yet, I am more partial to the more spread out but warmer Vanderbilt mansion with the Planetarium next to it on 20 acres. It is at the north shore, in Huntington, and as it was about 10-15 miles from where we lived and has been turned into a museum, we visited it, especially the planetarium, very often.

The mansion is a place that inspires all kinds of stories with its bell tower, stone bridges, and many rooms filled with artifacts and the family’s possessions from the jazz age, but I especially like its hilly well-kept garden and grounds that look to the Long Island Sound. This place, too, can be rented partially for weddings and such events.