Land a starring role in 'The Great Gatsby' for only $15,000

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You can  watch “The Great Gatsby” when it opens on the silver screen next year, or you can live like Fitzgerald’s greatest character with a Roaring Twenties getaway reminiscent of the fictional East Egg.
The Oheka Castle hotel on Long Island is offering a $15,000 “Romantic Evening Package” this holiday season, putting the hotel that’s located inside what was the second-largest private home in the country at your beck and call.
This Gatsby-esque one-night hotel stay in Cold Spring Harbor begins with a limo drive from anywhere in the five boroughs to the 127-room Oheka Castle, which is named from the letters in original owner Otto Hermann Kahn’s name.
Kahn, by the way, not only inspired “Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also the makers of Monopoly, providing the look for the board game’s fictional capitalist, Rich Uncle Pennybags.
Upon arrival, a white-gloved butler will carry your bags to your luxury suite. Then you can take over the entire ballroom: It’s been reserved for just you and your date. If the Charleston isn’t your thing — heck, Gatsby wasn’t such a great dancer — the hotel includes a lesson and a string quartet.
Follow that up with a dozen roses and a seven-course menu designed in consultation with your private chef.
You also get a personal photographer to record it all.
Long Island was home to more than a thousand such castles in America’s Gilded Age — six are now open to the public. Kahn’s summer home on 443 acres cost $11 million a hundred years ago. That would be roughly $110 million by today’s standards.
Original plans were found and checked for historical accuracy. Slate roof tiles were cut from the same Vermont quarry that formed the original ones. More than 250 windows and doors were replaced.
Oheka again has eight reflecting pools and three fountains. No wonder it’s a popular wedding and event venue and has been home to countless movie and advertising shoots.
The USA Network’s show “Royal Pains” filmed there, too.
Oheka fell into disrepair after Kahn’s death in 1934, becoming a summer retreat for New York City sanitation workers, a training school for the Merchant Marines and a military academy. Abandoned in the 1970s, vandals stripped the plumbing, plundered ornate chandeliers and even stole most of the 39 gigantic fireplaces right from the walls.
In 1984, Gary Melius bought the shell of the glorious estate and 23 acres around it for $1.5 million.
He restored the mansion and gardens to grandeur, investing $30 million in the painstaking process.
 If the Jay Gatz-like price of $15,000 a night is out of reach, old sport, you can still visit Oheka, where $25 guided tours are offered every day.