Iranistan

Iranistan was a Moorish Revival mansion in Bridgeport, Connecticut commissioned by P. T. Barnum in 1848. It was designed by Bohemian-American architect Leopold Eidlitz. At this "beautiful country seat" Barnum played host to such famous contemporaries as the Hutchinson Family Singers, Matthew Arnold, George Armstrong Custer, Horace Greeley, and Mark Twain. The grandiose structure survived only a decade before being destroyed by fire in 1857. It was one of five such fires in the showman's life that "burned to the ground all his accomplishments".
"Barnum's most unique mansion" was designed by the New York architect Leopold Eidlitz, later a founder of the American Institute of Architects. It was a mix of Byzantine, Moorish, and Turkish decorative elements, inspired by the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, which Barnum visited shortly after its construction and admired. The word Iranistan is composed of Iran and -stan. The suffix -stan is Persian for "place of" or "country" and Iranistan means descended from Iran and Persian culture.

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