Mount Vernon

**Mount Vernon** is a mansion on an estate in Cleveland, Ohio which is collectively owned by American rock band All Business. Originally purchased by and named after lead singer Vernon O'Shaughnessy in 1993, the estate was purchased with the intention of influencing the actions of the nearby Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They managed to help change the eligibility rules so that bands could get inducted only 10 years after the release of their first record, as opposed to the previous criteria of 25 years. The band would subsequently be inducted in their first year of eligibility in 2002.

While not as monumental of a year for the band as 1992, 1993 was still a great time to be a member of rock band All Business. Similarly, to the year that preceded it, All Business put out another two bodies of work in one calendar year, that being their third album, *Mogul Status: Executive Perks,* and their fourth, *Uniting the World*. The former was the musical culmination of their massive, nation spanning *Industry Titans* stadium tour while the latter would kick start their hasty *Uniting the World* benefit concerts. These two back-to-back albums, and accompanying world tours signified a sudden decline in care given to the artistic output of the band. All Business’s size had grown to 18 by the end of the *Industry Titans* tour, but even with all of these creative minds at the forefront, the band had become burnt out and spread thin. At the behest of All Business’s creative figurehead, lead guitarist Ted Bundy (an unfortunate birth name that he refuses to change) All Business’s focus sharply shifted to the *Unite the World* Charity organization, a blatant rip off of Michael Jackson’s Heal the World foundation started a few years prior. The reasoning Bundy has given for this move is overtly obtuse and wordy, but despite all this, the money had never been better. The success of the *Industry Titans* tour, mixed with all the money they had embezzled for personal use from the *Uniting the World* benefit concerts meant that the band, or more specifically, lead singer Vernon O’Shaughnessy had never been richer. One of the first endeavors Vernon began to embark on was the establishment of a new base of operations for the band. By the end of 93’, O’Shaughnessy and company had completed work on their new primary domain, the recording studio and mansion known as the Mount Vernon Estate.

Constructed just outside of Charleston West Virginia, The Mount Vernon estate can be compared in scale to the likes of Elvis’s Graceland in Memphis or Prince’s Paisley Park near Minneapolis. Ted Bundy elaborated on the choice to establish their new base of operations near West Virginia’s capital in an extended interview for Rolling Stone from January 1994.

“Now, I know this might seem like a bold move for us. Why West Virginia you may ask? We are in fact a band that has made our Texas roots a major part of our image. The fans eager to tour our home base may wonder why we don’t bring more tourism to our dwindling and tragedy-stricken home town of Waco. Or hell, they might ask why we don’t make our base of operations close to one of Texas’s many wonderful and illustrious city centers. They can’t stop asking. Well, for starters, we have already done more than enough for Texas. I don’t mean to take unnecessary aim at other Texas artists, but we have done more for our state than Pantera could ever dream of, and they’ve been there for way longer than we have. But I digress. It’s time for us to move on to greener pastures, and it doesn’t get much greener than West Virginia. Not greener in terms of gross GDP, that’s definitely not the case, but green as in terms of literal green forestry. When I first laid my eyes on the aching beauty of the Appalachia as a young boy, well, my imagination just ran wild. I first saw the mountains from Maryland actually, but West Virginia was just around the corner. But really if I had to say there was one real reason, one true reason why we chose this often-forgotten state as our newfound home, I’d have to say it’s because of its strategic geographic location. We’re a mere few hours’ drive away from many of the most important epicenters in all of America. This is why we need Charleston, West Virginia in our lives. Music right now is a war, and as any war tactician will tell you, position is everything. To our north, we have the factories. Cleveland, Ohio, on Lake Erie. This is the newfound rock and roll epicenter of America thanks to the Hall. In my many visits to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I can really feel that this is where I belong, where we belong. The greats have already blessed this establishment in the few years it has existed, and I know that we’re next. To the east, America’s power epicenter, Washington DC. We need to be within a short drive of a place like this. So many of the most important men in this country live there, and there’s no telling how much contact we are going to need to be in with them. To the Southwest, the cultural epicenter of America, Nashville. So many got their start there. Willie, the hayride, an entire city devoted to music. And to the North-east, the economic power house of maybe the world, New York City. If you don’t think we have our hands in wall street, well, think again. We need to be here”.

Bundy’s interview never explicitly touches on a widely speculated reason for why the band is believed to have chosen Charleston as their home, that being the cultural and economic dominance they would be able to assert over the area. Although Bundy does briefly mention the object poorness of West Virginia as a whole, his failure to compare this to All Business’s object wealth by this time comes across as more than just intentional. By the time the Mount Vernon Estate was fully operational, it became apparent to the state and local governments just how powerful All Business had become to Charleston’s culture. Locals welcomed them as heroes given their stature as one of America’s largest new voices in Rock, and the relatively small local airport saw a sharp increase in flights given the band members frequent private jet trips in an out of the city. It gave All Business’s members a newfound sense of local, cultural power not possible in cities populated by other celebrities. And they took full advantage of this. The states low property taxes were just the beginning of the loop holes All Business’s lawyers began scrounging for in their investigation into the laws of the state. One of the most important of these loopholes was discovered by up-and-coming lawyer Humphry Grammar, who would later be known by the business name “H. G. Wilikers.” His sharp minded legal examinations uncovered ways for the band to fast track their construction of the property, which put Grammar in good enough standing with All Business to make him their primary legal counsel for years to come. This led to the incredibly hasty construction of the Mount Vernon estate, which would end up becoming the state’s largest mansion property.

           Similarly to the elaborate stage set ups of their *Industry Titans* tour, one of the foundational architectural design choices within the Mount Vernon Estate was size. To help further establish All Business’s power within the relatively small state capital, Humphry Grammar made sure to allow for the largest building permits the state could provide. The end result was meant to exert metaphoric power over the people of West Virginia, signifying that the members of All Business were the wealthiest and most powerful the state had to offer. To accomplish this, O’Shaughnessy worked closely with architects to make sure the main house would be to scale with the massive, faux concert stage that was planned to dawn the houses backside. Given that this practice stage’s primary purpose was to emulate the scope of Wembley stadiums primary concert hall, the house itself would need to be five stories tall to match. This allowed for the house’s foyer to contain one of the tallest interior spiral staircases in the western hemisphere. Owning such a massive home entryway had been a lifelong dream of Bundy’s, and he gladly reveled in its majesty whenever Mount Vernon had any number of visitors.

           The Mount Vernon name was an apparent play on George Washington’s plantation of the same name, with the connective through line being Vernon O’Shaughnessy’s first name. The difference between these two to All Business came from the provided house tours of both estates. The historic nature of Washington’s home meant that the touching of artifacts was strictly forbidden, which was not the experience O’Shaughnessy and Bundy wanted to give to their fans. Although All Business tried and failed to get their Mount Vernon estate a historic landmark classification within the first year of its completion, their idea of what historic experience meant was vastly different. The All Business boys wanted their fans to get as true of an experience to the touring lifestyle as possible which, while not possible inside a mansion, didn’t stop them from providing one of the most intimate modern museum experiences the 90’s had to offer. A primary factor in accomplishing this abnormal goal was the tour guides themselves. The all-female staffs work attire was required to emulate those of All Business’s most promiscuous groupies, often hiring some of the very same women who had hit the road with them just a year prior. To allow for those under the age of 18 to still attend these guided tours, touching and nudity were strictly prohibited on behalf of the workers, although that did not stop some guests from attempting to engage with them sexually. This led to the second sect of the estate’s staff, Mount Vernon’s vast security force. Occasionally looked over by All Business bassist Johnny Law (birth name Jonathan Law), the sizeable number of guards watching over the property at any given time was meant to quell West Virginian officials fears over the degenerate nature some would use to describe the guided tours. This blatant endorsement of the law did work in bringing in a more sizeable family audience to West Virginia’s premiere music tourism destination, but All Business would soon abandon this scheme favor of other money-making ventures. Once O’Shaughnessy and company realized how little money the fans of West Virginia were able to offer them, the band subsequently stopped funding the up keep of their newly established museum. Even after the touring side of the estate fell into disarray, however, the band would still continue to use the premises as a primary base of operations for their recorded musical endeavors, existing in this capacity well into the new millennium.