2019: Andie Figuero is a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about restoring America's most lavish historic houses. Lucia "Lucky" Sprague, who still lives in Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, will only allow the show to go forward on two conditions: One, nobody speaks to her. Two, nobody touches the mansion's 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 Newport's elite. John is determined to see Maybelle married off to a fortune-hunting Italian prince-- and isn't aware of Ellen's checkered past. 1958: Lucky Sprague and her grandmother. the American-born Princess di Conti, fled Mussolini's Italy and returned to the imposing Newport house Nana owned but hadn't seen since her marriage in 1899. Lucky's husband, Stuyvesant Sprague, is the alcoholic scion of her stepfamily. As the cameras roll on Mansion Makeover, the house begins to yield up the dark secrets the Spragues thought would stay hidden forever. -- adapted from jacket.