
2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a
producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about
restoring Americaβs most lavish historic houses. Andie
has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but
gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island,
summer resort of Americaβs gilded classβfamous
for the lavish βsummer cottagesβ of Vanderbilts
and Belmonts. But Andie runs into trouble: the reclusive
heiress who still lives in the mansion, Lucia
βLuckyβ Sprague, will only allow the show to go
forward on two conditions: One, nobody speaks to her. Two,
nobody touches the mansionβs ruined boathouse.
1899: Ellen Daniels has been hired to give singing
lessons to Miss Maybelle Sprague, a naive young Colorado
mining heiress whose stepbrother John has poured their new
money into buying a place among Newportβs elite. John
is determined to see Maybelle married off to a fortune-
hunting Italian prince, and Ellen is supposed to polish up
the girl for her launch into society. But the deceptively
demure Ellen has her own checkered past, and sheβs
hiding in plain sight at Sprague Hall.
1958: Lucia βLuckyβ Sprague has always felt
like an outsider at Sprague Hall. When she and her
grandmotherβthe American-born Princess di
Contiβfled Mussoliniβs Italy, it seemed natural
to go back to the imposing Newport house Nana owned but
hadnβt seen since her marriage in 1899. Over the
years, Lucky's lost her Italian accent and found a place for
herself among the yachting set by marrying Stuyvesant
Sprague, the alcoholic scion of her Sprague stepfamily. But
one fateful night in the mansionβs old boathouse will
uncover a devastating truth...and change everything she
thought she knew about her past.
As the cameras roll on Mansion Makeover, the house begins
to yield up the dark secrets the Spragues thought would stay
hidden foreverβ¦.
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