So GQ nabbed an interview with the ever-elusive Tom Monaghan, the Domino’s Pizza mogul turned Catholic-utopia builder. Monaghan wouldn’t talk with MoJo when we covered the development of his $400 million university, Ave Maria, earlier this year. But GQ is different; he can tell them things like, “If I didn’t have my faith, I’d make Hugh Hefner look like a piker.”
Hef allusions aside, the GQ profile digs into Monaghan’s motivations for building what will become a Catholic universe set amidst former panther habitat. Turns out he’s always wanted to be an architect, and is now living his dream having built the anti-Las Vegas, complete with a towering cathedral and town square modeled after Siena, Italy, all tucked in the middle of the Florida Everglades.
The town, which the WSJ once compared to a “Catholic Jonestown,” will be as pious as possible; if Monaghan had his way contraceptives and pornography would be outlawed. After all, his goals are big ones; he plans to “reinvent hometown living,” one condo at a time.
