All tagged PT Barnum

Showplaces of the Greatest Showman; The Real Homes of PT Barnum

Watching The Greatest Showman recently, I was amused to see Woodlea (the former home of Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard, now the Sleepy Hollow Country Club) used as the home lived in by the snooty parents of PT Barnum’s wife, while interiors of the Duke Mansion on Fifth Avenue stood in for rooms in Barnum’s own mansion.  While both were undeniably fabulous settings, neither was correct period-wise.It started me thinking about Iranistan, the exotically fantastic mansion that Barnum had built in real life.  While searching for images of it online, I discovered PT Barnum had built no less than four splendid mansions in Bridgeport Connecticut over the course of his life.