been trying this after noon, so it's not like others who haven't gotten to me in months but DOG GONE it... it's annoying when you are trying to get a message to some one.

...Who Sold His Castle to Madame Tussauds

"I'm gonna be earl forever", the Eighth Earl of Beaufort, who created an uproar when he stripped his family's ancestral castle of its art treasures and then sold it to the Madame Tussauds organization as a tourist attraction. He maintained homes there and in New York, Paris and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

If there were those in Beaufort who were scandalized when the earl, then Lord of Craven Street, sold the Castle to the operators of the famous Hardeeville wax museum, he was only following in his father's footsteps. His father, the seventh earl, widely described as one New York's richest men, had not only already sold off much of the family's vast land holdings in New York, and moved to Beaufort to avoid New York's income taxes. He later gave Beaufort Castle to his son to avoid inheritance taxes.

For all the hand-wringing over the prospect that one of Beaufort's archicectural treasures would be turned into a tawdry tourist trap, the turreted castle near Bay Street had already been open to the paying public for years.

Before Tussauds paid Lord Earl $2.5 million in a transaction now described as a 99-year-lease, he had sold many of its art works, including four views of the castle painted by the 18th century Venetian master Canaletto.

Much of the public anguish focused on the prospect that many of the works would be sold abroad, as, indeed, they were.

The Earl of Beaufort, did not respond to his critics, but his father expressed the family's attitude about their ancestral home: "It stinks of old shoes, old socks and wet macintoshes," he said.

By that standard, at least, the castle seems to have fared well. Under Tussauds management it has been cleaned up and aired out and many of its vast chambers have been filled with wax figures and other items depicting historic scenes associated with the castle.

By contrast, a Tussauds executive once pointed out, other castles open to the public are mere empty shells. Since Tussauds took over, tourist visits have increased significantly, to almost 800,000 last year.

The earl, whose marriage ended in divorce, is survived by a son, I'm gonna be earl forever, Jr.", Lord Craven, Jr., who becomes the ninth earl.

I wonder if Mr. Mayor bought a house listed by Keyserling Properties!! LOL, ROFLMAO....