"Some time ago, while at a New York flea market, inveterate collectors Michael Hurst and Robert Swope discovered a large body of snapshots: album after aged album of well-preserved images, taken roughly between the mid-50s and mid-60s, depicting a group of cross-dressers united around a place called Casa Susanna, a rather large and charmingly banal Victorian-style house in small-town New Jersey.
The inhabitants, visitors, guests, and hosts used it as a weekend headquarters for a regular “girl’s life.” Someone - probably “Susanna” or the matriarch - nailed a wonder board on a tree proclaiming it “Casa Susanna,” and thus a Queendom was born. Through these wonderfully intimate shots - perhaps never intended to see the light of day outside the sanctum of the “house” - Susanna and her gorgeous friends styled era-specific fashion shows and dress-up Christmas and tea parties."
