{"product_id":"american-castle-one-hundred-years-of-mar-a-lago-9781635768961","title":"American Castle: One Hundred Years of Mar-A-Lago","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe unvarnished history of America's most notorious palace and its American queen\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMoments before the Roaring Twenties sunk into the Great Depression, socialite heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and financier E.F. Hutton constructed an estate to outdo all estates. To the tune of $4 million (about $68 million today) and four years of labor they called forth a 118-room mansion in a conflated Spanish, Portuguese, and Venetian design over a coral reef in hurricane-prone Palm Beach County. They named it Mar-a-Lago--a winter haven where corporate titans, the glitterati, and nobility gathered. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e But the honeymoon didn't last long. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In?\u003ci\u003eAmerican Castle\u003c\/i\u003e, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary C. Shanklin reveals a century of controversy, politics, and lifestyles of the super-rich and powerful after Mar-a-Lago became a part-time residence and party place upon Post's divorce from Hutton over mutual adultery. It's a story of an American royal who, at the age of 27, inherited a cereal company that would later become the General Foods Corporation and spent a lifetime in business, art collection, philanthropy, and the management of multiple estates--including her white elephant, Mar-a-Lago. Though she tried time again, as Shanklin covers in riveting detail, Post could not offload the behemoth due to its extraordinary maintenance costs and the uppity Palm Beach neighbors. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Drawing from previously untapped interviews, documents, and recordings, Shanklin follows Mar-a-Lago's evolution as it collides with the Kennedys, the state of Florida, a potential make-over as The Mar-a-Lago Center for Advanced Scholars, Lady Bird Johnson, Richard Nixon, the National Park Service, and--of course--Donald Trump, who pursued subdivision, threatened to sell to Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, hosted Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, made it a for-profit club, received scandalous dinner guests, turned it into his Winter White House, and watched the FBI raid before holding a home-court presser as the first former president to face criminal charges. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e How did the Palm Beach hamlet so lacquered in grace and elegance come to find itself rooted in American Castle: One Hundred Years of Mar-a-Lago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Diversion Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/12\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781635768961\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.15lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/03\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/15\/2023\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Mary Shanklin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52181240610997,"sku":"9781635768961","price":25.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_4de27798-8126-4163-b0fe-546e7c23784a.jpg?v=1768922292","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/american-castle-one-hundred-years-of-mar-a-lago-9781635768961","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}