Oct 4, Northport, NY

We woke up this morning to a very mild (warm) day and almost no fog. We are wearing shorts again and it feels like summer is still here.

Flat Calm

A condition where the appearant horizion is lower than the real horizion. See the boats above the appearant horizion? We did! (Click on the picture to blow it up.)

We motored west about 15 miles with absolutely flat sea conditions past Old Field Point, Cranes Neck Point and Eaton's Neck Point (all with lighthouses), then south into Huntington Bay and then east again to Northport Bay and the town of Northport, New York.

Homes as we enter Huntington Bay

Homes as we enter Northport Bay

Northport mooring field

Northport Town Dock. Tides here are eight feet with fixed docks. Maybe that's why they are free.

We are docked at the Northport Village Dock, (free dock after Labor Day) located right along the town waterfront park, directly at the foot of the town's main Street. Northport is a charming small town with lots of atmosphere, great trees and lots of nice restaurants and shops.

Northport downtown

Northport Town Park

Linda read about one of the Vanderbilt homes being here, now owned by Suffock County and open to the public. So we got a cab and took a 10 minute cab ride through a very pretty part of Long Island to the next town of Centerport, to see the home of William K Vanderbilt II, "Eagles Nest". This home is on the famous "North Shore" of Long Island and is one of many large homes on large property that were built in the early 1900's by families from New York City as summer homes. William K. Vanderbilt II was the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the New York Central Railroad, and the grandson's primary home was in New York City. In addition to the main home in NYC, he had this home on Long Island and a winter home on Fischer Island in the harbor at Miami, Florida and several large yachts including the 200+ foot ALVA named after his mother. Alva Vanderbilt built the "Marble House" in Newport, RI and ruled the social scene there for a time. Her sister-in-law later built the "Breakers" in Newport, to "top" the "Marble House" (which it did) and Alva was no longer the undisputed social leader, but that is another story. The family seemed to be competing to spend the money.

"Eagles Nest"

"Eagles Nest" is a 24 room Spanish Revival mansion on 43 acres overlooking the Long Island Sound. The house had several rooms with panelling and furniture imported from Europe. The house is now a showcase for the Vanderbilt collections and has several rooms dedicated to his interests. There are collections of stuffed animals, mostly from African safari's in the 1920's and 1930's, stuffed birds from all over the world, butterfly's, fish and other sea life from the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Red Sea's, South Pacific, Florida and the Caribbean (all preserved in glass jars of water and alcohol), shells from all over the world, other souvenirs from Europe, Africa and the South Seas, family portraits, ship models and other memorabilia from the family travels. Pretty eclectic. Kind of dated and looking a little unloved. This home does not compare with the Vanderbilt home in North Carolina. It is, however, nice to have one of the old "North Shore" homes preserved and open so we can see how they lived during the golden age here. This "North Shore" area was then, and still is, known as "the Gold Coast". It truly is a beautiful area.