The Gate House is the sequel to The Gold Coast. The book begins when John Sutter, former Wall Street tax attorney, returns to the Gold Coast of Long Island, NY for the imminent funeral of a family servant; Ethel Allard. On John's return to the United States he realizes that he has no standing line of credit, no money, no home, no friends and no family – that which he wants to speak to – and has therefore taken up residence in the gate house of Stanhope Hall, the ancestral manor of his ex-wife Susan Sutter. The mansion itself is huge and sits on 323 acres and has since been seized by the government after the former owner, Frank Bellarosa – the original antagonist from The Gold Coast – is charged with tax evasion and has his assets seized by the I.R.S.; therefore the government has sold the mansion to an Amir Nasim, an Iranian businessman and devout Muslim.