Margarine Mansion

Margarine Mansion Apartments, formerly Margarine Mansion and Plantation, is a historic, mighty, four-story apartment complex that holds roughly five hundred tenants. It is truly huge and once belonged to the famous Margrin family, which consisted of generations of dairy tycoons that had expanded their farm and its resident employees into a modern example of manoralism. Their farm's employees were so productive that the thing ran itself, a cash cow, literally, and the actual family simply served an administrative purpose as the employees lived on the land for years and worked practically as slaves.

The building was seized thanks in part to an intervention of Lichenblossom's Ministry of the Oversight of Monopolies, as well as the Margrin family's traditional dairy-making methods being supplanted by modern technology. The mansion was sold, changing hands several times until it became historic and was converted into an apartment complex. The original mansion building is still one of the largest single-building residential units in the area.

Modern historians liken this estate to the infamous town of Isotope, TA, in that the workers were bound to the land for life under an oppressive employer with no way out.

Background
After the fall of the Snowman Empire, a group of displaced penguins, the Margrins, settled into the new regime. Seeing that the land was infertile and rocky, the resourceful family found some female Moo Penguins. They asked these penguins if they would live on the land and receive plenty of food in exchange for shapeshifting into cows every now and then to be milked. The Moo Penguins agreed, but the crafty Margrins had them sign a contract that the would live on their land and work for them... ...-and they could never leave.

This small farm was about two acres in size, with shanties for the Moo Penguins and a decent-sized, increasingly-luxurious home for the Margrins.

As the years went by, milk suddenly became more popular in Antarctica, and more Moo Penguins began to show up. These too were "hired", and the Margrins expanded their farm. To this, they added several more acres and expanded their profits greatly. Normal penguins eventually came to the Margrins for work, and they were contracted into the same unfree labor as the Moo Penguins. These new serfs began to take other jobs besides just milking, taking up tasks like the grounds staff and the household managers. The influx of employees and their lack of salary (living there instead) brought huge profits and allowed the powerful Margrins to expand their average far into the double digits. By 1957, they held well over ninety acres.

Several times over the years, they knocked down their old home and built a bigger one. Far too elite for igloos, these penguins gave themselves huge wooden, and later brick, structures filled with the fanciest of technology and the highest quality household staff that money can buy.

Decades passed, and the multiple generations of serfs on the land began to make their voices heard. They sometimes protested, the Moo Penguins turned back into penguins in the middle of milking, and they purposely slowed down their production to annoy the Margrins and the farm managers.

Eventually, this outrage hit the ears of Candia Sermunculli in the 1970s, who took time off from her horrible failures at busting Danville Oil to investigate the situation down in Olde Antarctica. The King at the time approved her request for an audit, and she appeared on the land one day and took conclusive evidence of their abuse of labor and unfree employment tactics. She also took testimonies from various employees, ranging from butlers to the farmers to the cows themselves.

For once, her evidence was not lost or averted, and the MOM decided to authorize the breakup. However, they had to wait for the King of the Waeter Kingdome to authorize their intervention request. He did, and the Margrins were forced to abolish their serf system in favor of real salaries. This was called a manumission, but the angry Margrins clearly noted that the freedom was not willfully handed out. They held onto their serfs a little longer by rigged contracts, but this too was deemed unjust by the powerful MOM and the King again permitted them to intervene.

The now free laborers left for better employers as the technological boom began to crumble the infrastructure of Olde Anarctica. At the fall of the Four Kingdoms and the rise of Colonial Antarctica, the Margrins' farm ceased to operate. The family, still excessively rich, knocked down their house and built the illustrious mansion that still stands today.

They lived off of their money until 1980, when the last act of the outgoing Waeter King was to seize the Margrin property and later auctioned the entire estate as if it was taken because of bankruptcy. The Margrins appealed to the King of Colonial Antarctica to stop them, but he refused. Over time, other unimportant buyers took the mansion and it land until it was eventually sold to an entrepreneurial businesspenguin that had the old building restored and converted into an apartment.

Even if the MOM never intervened, economists note that the serfs would eventually revolt against the Margrins and start wage labor anyway. Then, the business would eventually run into the ground due to excessive salaries. Modern milking methods, namely by fully automated milking machines, would eventually overtake the manually operated devices the Margrins used.

Now homeless, the Margrins scattered and bought other pieces of land and estates across the country (and abroad). Many of their descendants live there to this day, though two of them, Argent Glimmer and Aurus Lux bought the mansion and apartment complex to preserve their heritage. Lord Harold von Injoface also bought 30% of their shares, in exchange for the indefinite right to live in the penthouse, which he uses as a vacation house.

The land
The beautiful but barren hills, rocks, and beaches of the estate once stretched for a mile or so, but after the sale, it was

Under Margrin ownership
Sitting on an awe-inspiring two hundred acres, the Margrin estate had an entire neighborhood of tiny serf shanties directly next to the huge industrial factory where the milk was collected, and where the farm staff ate. Tennis courts, a fifty car garage, a fountain plaza, and a garden were also on the estate.


 * Refer to this map:


 * Manoralism.png

The property today
The land, after converted to the complex, was chopped off a bit to save money and maintenance costs. The mansion was converted into a beautiful apartment complex, and the industrial factory was also transformed into a second, more robust apartment complex. The fountain plaza, garden shed, and serf shanties were demolished, but the garage, gardens, and tennis courts were kept for the residents' entertainment.


 * Refer to this map:


 * [[File:MagrerineMansion-today.png]]

The Mansion
The Mansion holds well over twenty thousand square feet of living space, and when it was sectioned into apartments, there was room for over five hundred inhabitants and a few penthouses.

Under Margrin ownership
At its peak, the Mansion was four stories of the highest of luxuries. There were fifteen bedrooms, thirty bathrooms, a luxury kitchen big enough for a normal restaurant, sitting rooms, great rooms, two studies and a library, a billiards room, an indoor pool, staff lounges, a basement, and even a butler's pantry! Other rooms of innumerable purposes and sizes existed, too, and the beautiful hallways connected them all.

The household staff that lived with the Margrins enjoyed a small amount of these privileges, including real sleeping chambers that any normal penguin would covet. The serfs, though didn't get this.

Present day
Most of the rooms, including the sitting rooms, bedrooms,, kitchen, indoor pool, basement, living room, and staff lounges were sectioned with thin walls and were made into individual apartments with new halls running between them. The original halls, billiards room, one study, a library, and one great room were kept for residents' use. The bathrooms became shared, a common problem in apartment complexes.

The study was merged into the library, and its now-vacant room was converted into a computer lab for the residents' use. The library was continuously stocked with excellent books and was given a section for the study to occupy. The billiards room was used for the guests to play pool, and the great room and its huge fireplace served as an area of relaxation.

The place could be better compared to a boarding house than apartments. Even though all apartments come with a tiny kitchen, the bathrooms are in the halls and shared, for example. There are entertainment items for the residents, something not found in apartments.

The fifty-car garage was converted into more apartments, too.

The Factory
The large, aluminum-sided, glistening Factory just outside of the Mansion was originally a poorly lit, massive and one-story building where the milers toiled with the large machines that they used to suck the milk out of Moo Penguins.

After the conversion, the building was altered into a two-story complex of larger apartments, holding twenty in total. These are much more like true apartments, with bathrooms and kitchens in every apartment, but Factory dwellers can not use the luxuries in the Mansion complex, though they are free to use the tennis courts and what-not.

The serf houses
These shanty houses were originally right next to the Factory. They were dirt-floored, one-room buildings made of wood. Public bathrooms were shared and neglected, and there was no running water or indoor plumbing outside of the public bathroom. Laborers didn't have the luxury of showers, so they used the ancient avian practice of preening instead.

These were all demolished upon the conversion of the buildings to apartment structures.

Inhabitants
Many common and prestigious groups and families live in these buildings, including the wealthy Lord Harold von Injoface, who lives in a penthouse unit. Some of his shady friends are frequently invited, hustling pool in the billiards room. Hermeshroom, one of TurtleShroom's brothers, also has an apartment in the Mansion, and he is usually found in the Study/Library. Kerb W. and his pet Kerbpuff call this place home, and hardly ever depart unless for the nearby Club Penguin Island. Not surprisingly, one of Boss XeXeXe's castles is located a few blocks away.

Other penguins and creatures of various origin call this place home. They are quite happy with the mansion, even if they must share bathrooms.

Trivia

 * This is a very loose parody of Butter Building, from Kirby's Adventure and subsequent remakes.
 * Despite the unfair conditions, the Margrins sure did know how to flatter with music. Workers used this carefree tune to calm down the Moo Penguins during milking. Today, the ditty has become Margarine Mansion's elevator music, and even has gotten remixed, scoring a number 1 hit on the Penguin Official Music Charts.