Hidden On Long Island's Gold Coast Is An NYC Suburb With Nearby Beaches And Sweet Small-Town Charms

Anyone looking for a quieter escape from New York City can easily head east to Long Island and find slower-paced towns with cozy beaches and scenic harbors. Long Island's north coast, known as its Gold Coast, is famed for being the retreat of the New York aristocracy, characterized by Gilded Age mansions, lavish gardens, and waterfront views. It's home to such sumptuous gems as the Oheka Castle, a mansion getaway that's like a mini palace of Versailles. The town of Centerport along the Gold Coast has a touch of this glamor with a small beach village sensibility.

Centerport is laid out across a peninsula and neighborhood curving around the Centerport Harbor, marked by rolling wooded hills that slope into small, sandy beaches. It's bordered on the east by Northport, a family-friendly town that's an uncrowded alternative to the Hamptons. The Little Neck peninsula of Centerport is crowned by the sweeping Vanderbilt Mansion, now a museum and planetarium with a few odd trophies of Vanderbilt's eccentrically genteel taste. Before Centerport was a Gilded Age getaway, though, it was a humble hamlet mainly inhabited by farmers and baymen, given the name Little Cow Harbor. You can still see a few old structures around the town, some dating back as far as the early 1700s.

Coming from Manhattan, you can get to Centerport either by car or train. Driving takes about an hour from Midtown, or you could get there with New York's robust transit system, one of the cheapest ways to navigate New York City on a vacation. In that case, you'd take the Long Island Rail Road from Penn Station to Huntington, then it's a short taxi or Uber ride to Centerport, adding up to about a 1.5-hour trip. The town is fairly compact — you could walk the length of Little Neck peninsula in about an hour. A defining feature of the town is the harbor that cuts through the center, which has lent itself to a prominent local boating culture. Historically, the harbor had an important role for farmers and millers, as it could be used for transporting grain by boat. In fact, Centerport once had more mills along the shoreline than anywhere else in Long Island. At the small Grist Mill Park, you can see a historic gristmill stone on public display.

Two lovely beaches look across at each other over the harbor. On the west side, there's Fleets Cove Beach. It has a shaded picnic area, playground, and pebbly shore for swimmers or paddlers. On the east side is Centerpoint Beach Park, which has a sandy swimming area plus 30 acres of wooded park space. There are also volleyball, tennis, and bocce ball courts, as well as a looping walking trail.

Walk for about 15 minutes across the peninsula from Centerpoint Beach, and you'll land at the famed Eagle's Nest, the 43-acre estate of multimillionaire yachtsman William K. Vanderbilt II. On the estate is the 24-room Mediterranean-style mansion that was Vanderbilt's summer home, complete with a red-tiled roof, arched doorways, Grecian columns, and an ornate bell tower. Construction of the mansion began in 1910, and over the course of 30 years, the estate grew to include gardens, pools, and a museum. The gardens are particularly splendorous — contoured by boxwood hedges with reflecting pools and fountains tucked among rose bushes.

Vanderbilt was an ocean fanatic, being a sailor and a collector of maritime specimens. The Eagle's Nest estate doubled as a place where Vanderbilt could display his collection, with wings filled with over 40,000 objects and exhibits, open to the public since 1922. The Hall of Fishes is a standout, displaying the bulk of Vanderbilt's collection of oceanic artifacts and creatures. The Habitat Wing showcases life-sized dioramas with taxidermied animals, while the Nursery Wing guards a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy. Vanderbilt was also a race car enthusiast, and you can see one of his antique cars on display in the Memorial Wing. The museum is open every day but Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there are also planetarium shows on Friday and Saturday evenings.