American Castle - by Mary Shanklin

About the Book

"The characters, scandals, and secrets that shaped America's most controversial residence."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The characters, scandals, and secrets that shaped America's most controversial residence.

Emerging from family tragedy and newfound chances, the story of Mar-a-Lago starts when heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and investor E.F. Hutton built their ode to Roaring Twenties excess in south Florida. And as the hood ornament of Palm Beach society, not even a catastrophic hurricane could deter winter revelries there. No one could have predicted what followed: This 126-room wonder has withstood mutual adultery, high-stakes divorces, ruinous development plans, apathetic heirs, and financial collapses. All this...even before Donald Trump was given the keys to the front door.

American Castle reveals a power couple's dream oasis colliding with the Kennedys, Lady Bird Johnson, Richard Nixon, the National Park Service, and Donald Trump--the man who fused a private club with a Winter White House and watched the FBI raid his own home.

Review Quotes

Praise for American Castle by Mary C. Shanklin

"An enthralling narrative of extreme American opulence and unforgettable characters set within Marjorie Merriweather Post's Mar-a-Lago. American Castle is the brilliantly detailed, must-read prologue to the estate's current chapter of excess and scandal."

-Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

"A history of a grand mansion and its numerous occupants...A well-told story that's full of surprises, its storied subject generating headlines for a century."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Reading American Castle is like having a tabloid newspaper in front of you and a history book on the side. Or the other way around. Or both; straddling many important historical events, there's enough inside here to satisfy the two genres equally. If you love the history of privilege, politics, or current events, American Castle is a book you won't stop talking about."

--Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Goshen News

"...a fast-paced narrative that takes a detailed look into the 118-room, 17-acre estate's history...What lies ahead for Mar-a-Lago isn't known."

--Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Daily News

"An entirely new perspective of the now world-famous Mar-a-Lago. The public tends to look at Mar-a-Lago as the residence of Donald Trump, without realizing that it once belonged to them as part of the National Park Service--and before that, to one of the wealthiest and most compelling socialites in American history, Marjorie Merriweather Post."

--Tim Franklin, Senior Associate Dean of Northwestern University Medill School, former President of the Poynter Institute

"Journalist Shanklin debuts with an immersive behind-the-scenes portrait of Mar-a-Lago, the former Palm Beach mansion turned private club...Chronicling 100 years of contentious real estate schemes and failed plots to put 'this massive souvenir of the 1920s' to good use, ' Shanklin demonstrates that Mar-a-Lago has had an unusually variegated history, even compared to similar Gilded Age castles. Readers will be entertained."

--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Journalist Mary C. Shanklin has written for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, USA Today, Architectural Record, and more. A Pulitzer Prize cofinalist for a series on the Pulse nightclub shootings and winner of journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and more, Shanklin resides in Winter Garden, Florida.