The Zieglers and the Clintons?
Given that the film was made in the late-1990s when Bill Clinton was US President, it is difficult to avoid making obvious and disturbing analogies between the Zieglers in the film and the Clintons, their mannerisms, appearance, attitudes, transgressive behaviours, ideology, wealth, power, being strikingly comparable. Indeed, the very building that is Ziegler's residence in the film, the century-old "Gilded Age" Beaux Arts mansion at 233 Madison Avenue (presently the Embassy of Poland) was actually, for half a century - from the 1920s to the 1970s - the federal/national headquarters of the Democratic Club ...
http://www.sepiatown.com/100229-National-Democratic-Club-233-Madison-Avenue-New-York-USA
Even Tammany Hall/Tammany Society, the political machine which controlled New York for almost 200 years, moved its operations to this address in the 1940s, to the National Democratic Club:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
The house was originally build and owned by one of America's richest men, Joseph De Lamar, who also had a holiday-home mansion on Long Island, "Pembroke" or "Glenco", in Glen Cove [precisely where Somerton is located in the film], that was later acquired by the most powerful man in the movie business - MGM founder Marcus Lowe - and became a leading venue for "Jazz Age" 1920s parties and also for private Hollywood parties for many decades (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton honeymooned there, staying in the Beach House pavioion on the estate next to the pier overlooking Long Island Sound):
http://www.oldlongisland.com/search?q=de+lamar
Taking some 10 years to fully construct (from 1906 to 1916, LaMar dying two years later, in 1918), the mansion was some 60,000 square feet and it also had a separate north wing of some 50,000 square feet that comprised the largest private conservatory complex in the world, an indoor "winter garden" and tropical plant enclosure containing waterfalls, rivers, swimming pool, orangery, grapery, 30ft palm trees, cave and grotto, while in the even larger basement was a plush cinema, a gymnasium, a squash court, a shooting range, a bowling alley, and all the pumping, plumbing, heating and electrical equipment to keep it all going 24 hours a day. Elsewhere on the estate was an indoor tennis court (still standing today), an 8-story observation tower and water tank, greenhouses, orchards, Japanese gardens with ornamental ponds, sunken garden with pavilion, stables, farm houses and outbuildings. DeLamar - a bling nouveau riche merchant like no other - also kept his two huge boats, a yacht and motor boat, the largest in the area, just in front of the house at his own pier.
De Lamar began as a merchant seaman (a sailor, a "naval officer": "De Lamar", de le mer: from the sea), and he later left his estate to his only daughter, Alice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Raphael_De_Lamar_House
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Raphael_De_Lamar
Connection to the "Jazz Age", F Scott Fitzgerald, and "The Great Gatsby":
http://www.mansionsofthegildedage.com/search?q=pembroke
"But across the water from Beacon Towers, "Gatsby's Mansion", was the estate and phenomenal mansion called Pembroke, which was in Glen Cove. This amazing estate was built by Captain De Lamar, then sold to Marcus Loew, the movie theater magnate. It was here that Fitzgerald probably attended the wild parties during the roaring twenties that were attended by some of the silent screens greatest stars such as Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino and served as inspiration for those depicted in his novel. This estate also had a long dock, with a light at the end, visible from Gatsby's mansion."