What is "iranistan"

Iranistan was a Moorish Revival mansion in Bridgeport, Connecticut that was commissioned by P. T. Barnum in 1848. It was designed by the Austrian-American architect Leopold Eidlitz. At this "beautiful country seat" Barnum played host to such famous contemporaries as the Hutchinson Family Singers, Matthew Arnold, George 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".