Maria purchased the 150 acre property in the mid-1950s; originally, the Valentis had dubbed it ''
Chevalier D'Eon Resort''. They charged $25 for a weekend's stay, which included food, lodging, and lessons in makeup. Hidden away in the rural
Catskills, Casa Susanna provided privacy to its guests, in a time when public cross-dressing was a criminal offense across most of America. Casa Susanna was a haven for its guests to celebrate their "inner girl" without persecution, and acted as an important space within which guests were allowed to comfortably and happily participate in activities such as gardening and board games whilst expressing their gender identity or inner desire to cross-dress. Most guests at Casa Susanna were married, and considered themselves heterosexual men who enjoyed cross-dressing, but many others later identified as transgender and lived out their lives as women, including
Virginia Prince and Susanna herself. though
Polaroid cameras were available at the time, Andrea used a film camera that required the use of negatives instead, and put the negatives in the possession of her photography mentor Dick, who had gifted her her photography equipment. However, when Dick later married, these negatives were thrown away, eventually making their way to a Manhattan flea market in the mid-2000s. There, they were found by Robert Swope, "a gentle punk rocker turned furniture dealer", who bought every photograph he could find and published them in a book with his partner Michel Hurst. ==Influence==