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Monday, July 9, 2007

A dearth of modern owner built castles...

Well, weeks of searching in my spare time has landed very few modern owner built castles, at least ones with a website. It appears that the "heyday" of castlebuilding in the US was during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and generally done by those with large quantities of discretionary income who built massive multi-room mansions, ostentatious dwellings or odd little structures that weren't practical as residences. This is interspersed with a few nice examples of what I'll call "hermit" castles (ones where some guy disappears off into the hinterlands only to be discovered later that he's been building a small castle-like residence) and the ones that were built as homes with a castle like feature or two.

Some of the modern "castles" I've found aren't much more than a standard home, usually in a box-like shape, with crenellations along the roofline; many not even made of stone or even possessing a stone facade. Others are built in keeping with the early American castlebuilders, folks with a lot of spare cash having someone build it for them. While I applaud these homeowners for pursuing their dreams, these types of results don't really fit the type of structure that fits this site's goals.

It seems I'm able to locate about one castle website a week. It just goes to show you what a unique pursuit it is to build a castle of stone (or cement block) these days. Getting in touch with the owners of the sites is an entirely different story as many of the websites do not have contact information, or the ones I have queried simply do not reply; so relaying any helpful information to the rare potential modern castlebuilder is not looking too good. I was counting on a little more "geek" factor, here... Honestly, you've just got to be a little geeky to be so into things medieval that you'd want to build a castle, and usually geekyness and the internet go hand-in-hand, so ergo, geeks building castles would be sure to put them online.

I'll just have to keep looking!

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