So; you want to build a castle, eh?

Taxes, Survey, Forward...

2012-01-25T09:02:00.003-05:00

Something to think about if you plan to buy and hold land for future building - no matter what you plan to put on it - is the cost of owning the land after you've paid it off. Make sure you check the rates and expected taxes on the property and consider what that does to the long-term affordability of the land. If there's already a house on it, you'll have a good idea of what the taxes are going to be, but consider that taxes almost always go up. If there isn't a building on it, consider that the taxes may make a significant jump once there is a structure there. Double or more. Our taxes aren't that high in the area where the land is, total sales tax (local and state) is around 8% (clothing items less than $110 are not taxed) and the food tax is low. Not that high I say, compared to other urbanized states. New York also divides property taxes up into two separate bills, the actual property tax and a "school tax". They hit at opposite ends of the year, which is nice that you aren't getting hit with a big bill once a year, and at this point it isn't very expensive because the land is unimproved. We'd expect a 50-100% increase in the total tax once there is a structure. Keep these things in your plan. It's better to know about them rather than have your plans dashed because of the unexpected or long term expenses.The survey is finalized and we have a rough idea for building areas....and lastly I've deleted the SOPA/PIPA post. Due to internet-wide backlash and motivated individuals communicating with their representatives the legislation has been shelved. Not dropped, just shelved. It will return, possibly under a different name, again. If you'd like a good explanation of why SOPA/PIPA is a bad idea, I recommend viewing this TED talk by Clay Shirky.

Progress at Stephenson Castle

2011-12-24T20:41:00.001-05:00

I received a note from the folks over at Stephenson Castle, there are some new photos on the site featuring the build progress. Doesn't look too far from being dried in and ready for some finish work!Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all the castle dreamers and builders out there.

Slow progress, but progress...

2011-10-29T14:13:00.002-04:00

Survey completed. Took a while, but we had some unfortunate difficulty with a simple thing like a cashier's check from the bank that the surveyor's bank wouldn't accept due to the payee's line on the check including my name. I never saw it, but why the heck the teller had my name on that line, I don't know. Of course the nearest branch for the bank was almost 4 hours away round trip and there's no way we were going to spend the time and expense for that, so we had to re-scrape together the funds for another check while sitting on the now useless check. Argh. And the bank wouldn't cancel it over the phone. A little early in the game to be running into difficulties, one would think!

At any rate, the surveyor only mapped about 30% of the land in the area of the proposed build site. It makes sense not to do the whole thing as that would incur additional and unnecessary expense. Pretty basic layout, a virtually straight driveway directly to the site; the house is first, then the leach field, then the creek, all the appropriate setbacks included. Progress is progress!

Also, the architect did some checking with the building department regarding our intent of building a small accessory apartment first and then building the house later. Seems like it was an acceptable idea to the building department, and they suggested that we pull and yearly renew a building permit for the "big house", that way if the regs change in such a way that it would no longer be able to build the second house we'd have the approved permit in-hand and would still be able to build. Never would've thought of that on our own; just goes to show you that if you're going to build, let the building department know of your plans and ask lots of questions! Could save some grief later.

ICF Castle (Scott's Castle)

2011-09-10T12:48:00.000-04:00

Scott's Castle

At last, someone has really built a castle of sorts using ICFs. they obviously didn't do this themselves, but some folks have asked about building a castle with ICF materials, so here's proof it can be done. The structure here is over 11,000 square feet, so this is not an inexpensive venture. Photo from site.

Castles for sale

2011-09-10T11:43:00.001-04:00

Just for fun I think I'll post these here. There are several castle like homes for sale, and several serious castles as well. If you have a spare million or more burning a hole in your pocket you could have one of your very own. Some of them are pretty neat from a architectural and historical view, and all of them are just cool to look at.

Landoll's Mohican Castle

2011-09-10T11:27:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I would call this a castle or if it's an owner built castle, but it reminds me of Castle Rogue's Manor in style so I'll mention it here anyway. Landoll's Mohican Castle is in Ohio, not too far from Columbus, and can be retained for events, getaways and various functions. Looks quite pretty and it would be a neat place to have a look at. Some of the interior pictures look like they put quite a bit of effort into the look and design, but I hate to say that some of the look has been overdone to the point of being "touristy" if you know what I mean.

Castle Northmoor

2011-09-10T10:49:00.000-04:00

Castle Northmoor has been built by Harlan Shaver and is near Kansas City. Looks like he started the project in the early '80s. Not a whole lot of information about the project itself, but the tower looks like an addition to a normal house. The article here implies that Mr. Shaver built most or all of the structure himself. Pretty cool castle turret!

Unknown Michigan Castle

2011-09-08T11:43:00.001-04:00

A castle in Michigan

Found this castle on another castle aficionado's website. I don't know anything about it other than what is posted on the page. The photo here is from their site.

Flex-c-ment - Simulated Stone

2011-09-08T11:35:00.001-04:00

I really hope we can swing an honest stone exterior, even if it means using "fake" stone blocks of cement to get the look. I generally despise fake stone as it tends to look like exactly what it is - fake. Monochromatic and repetitive tiling is also a drawback of that type of material. Obviously some of these man-made materials can look quite good, but you can approach the cost of real stone with the higher end materials. Here's something I happened across while doing a search for castles on the web, it's called Flex-c-ment and it uses a pressed-in pattern for creating the stone look. They even have wood patterns too, which I thought was a nice touch for getting the rustic look without the rot. It's up to the installer to refine the look and add good coloration to get the best out of the end product. If they had classes to do this I'd consider using this method of getting the look without too much expense. Searching the internet for faux stone or the like returns several manufacturers making the materials, perhaps there is an upsurge in popularity for this kind of facade.

Need an interior archway built for you?

2011-08-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

Just found this site for pre-made ceilings that are shipped to you ready to put together. I'm not advertising for them, but it may be useful to someone out there. Maybe one might not have the time or knowledge to put together a barrel vaulted ceiling or a door arch, so this might be a way to go. The prices seem fair, but that depends on how much cash you've got vs. how much your time is worth. Have a look. Archways and Ceilings Made Easy.

Sqire's Castle

2011-08-28T10:45:00.001-04:00

We had the opportunity to visit Squire's Castle in Ohio while visiting some friends. It was built by one of the founders of Standard Oil Co as a gatehouse for his estate, but the rest of the estate was never built and all that is left is this shell. There is a nice park surrounding the structure with hiking trails through the greenwood. Quite beautiful, I like the Ohio woods. Sharply rolling terrain behind the castle would have been a neat place for a hill- or ridge-top castle proper. A neat little place, I wouldn't call it roomy by any stretch and I think it would have been expensive to condition the air inside during the hottest and coldest months.

The below pic was taken with my phone ( funny that my phone takes neater pictures than my nice camera ) with 360 Panorama. It was free in the app store, so grab it while you can before they start charging for it if you're interested.

Guest house, in-law, starter house

2011-06-27T21:10:00.000-04:00

Ok, this one's officially complete. Not much more I could add to it, maybe some changes to the colors and design (I think the windows should be a little lower) but this is a good layout. Interior space is small but open, the double doors will allow the outside in and the patio allows outdoor living area.

Mother in Law

2011-06-26T09:11:00.000-04:00

Done. Not too bad looking. A stone border around the planted area is needed, plus a walk-out flagstone patio with French doors on the back or end facing the camera would add some attractive and useful living area to make the place feel a little larger. Have to check code and see how 3 season covered areas are viewed as far as square footage goes.

Mother in Law

2011-06-09T22:51:00.001-04:00

I think this one would be just dandy as a starter house for the property and it could easily double as a "mother in law" or guest house once the main building is completed. Only 750 sq.ft., simply designed, with an open floor plan and potential for a loft area this one could be built quickly and get us into a home on the property to start with. Inspiration for this cottage was drawn from Google image searches of Black Forest vacation homes, Schwarzwald Ferienhaus if you'd like to see some too.

EDIT: Updated the photo. Don't mind the mangy grass, I'm still working on getting the software figured out!

Architectural services selected, balancing act

2011-06-07T18:35:00.003-04:00

We're getting our foot in the door of this project and the balancing act must begin. Budget with desires, our crazy designs with resale-ability, ideas with time. Luckily our designs have shrank steadily over time (thanks to not winning the lottery, dangit! ;) ) so we have more reasonable ideas space-wise, so that helps a lot in moving this project toward an affordable outcome. The one item other than finances that I think we'll struggle a bit with is how this place will look in the end. We're not going to live forever. We don't expect our offspring to want to continue to keep the house. That means someone else will buy it. Frankly, there's a limited pool of people that would be interested in buying something far out there, and even more limited bunch that could actually afford it; that means the more wild and crazy a project is the harder it will be to find someone that's willing to pay us for what it's worth. If we were able to build something amazing by ourselves for less than $150,000 we probably would go that route, but alas it will likely cost more than that and we'll need to get a return on the investment. I'd also like to stay married and get the house built in this lifetime!

Creating this idea using a more conventional route to homebuilding will likely mean dream/design sacrifices. If we did it totally DIY, the only ones to tell us that we can't do something would be the engineer or local codes so there would be no limits other than time and money. That's not how things are working out, but hopefully we'll be able to get some parts of it done just right - tastefully - and folks will think, "Castle!" or, "Schloss!" when they see it. A suggestion of a turret. A bit of crenellation, perhaps? Steep roof somewhere? Some half-timbering here, a lot of stone there. Yep. No reason it can't be done, we've got books full of great houses pictured with those details and they are very desireable homes. Of course, many were built 75+ years and more ago by millionaires; but hey, who's counting?

Anyway, first thing's first; we'll get a survey done and get the septic in. We are considering a super-small house on the property (perhaps it will remain as a "mother-in-law") to get out of our current house and out from under the mortgage. It wasn't too bad before, but with the little'un here and the other half not working as much in order to be home and take care of her (Day care/Baby sitters are expensive!) it would help more to get out of this place and into something with a much, much lower overhead. But that's all on the drawing table.

Will keep the blog updated, and we'll post that first shovel of dirt getting displaced for the future "castle".

This is a whatsit?

2011-05-26T17:56:00.001-04:00

Unknown fungus?

Saw this growing among the leaf litter on the forest floor. I have no idea what it is, but I suspect some kind of fungus. Anybody know what kind this is?

EDIT: Solved. Squaw Root aka Cancer Root. A parasitic plant that feeds off of the roots of oak and other trees. Lives underground, except when the chlorophyll-free flowers pop up and that is what is visible here. Sure looks like a bizarre fungus, but it's a plant.

Now where can I put that turret?

2011-04-30T15:56:00.000-04:00

I like this design quite a bit, but it's lacking a turret!

A very nice sound...

2011-04-21T13:12:00.003-04:00

...greeted us when we got out of the car today and it sounded like the videos above. The creeks are year-round, and at this time of year are a bit more vocal than they would be otherwise thanks to the spring rain giving them a bit more energy. Normally in the summer or deep winter, the bottom creek is at best a foot wide and the top one about three feet wide and considerably less active. The pictures don't give a good sense of scale, but they're both about three to four feet wide at this point and they sound impressive with the multiple little falls they pass down as they meander across the property. One is currently beginning to undercut one of the old stone walls, so it's going to get moved - which is part of the plan anyway - and be incorporated in a pond with a slightly grander waterfall. A pretty thing to listen to, stepping out a future back door.

None of the trees were greening up, but some of the undergrowth is beginning to show some leaves. We can't seem to manage to get out there when the sun is shining and take pictures, I hope that this isn't a harbinger of the continuous state of the weather here. One of the cloudiest and rainiest cities in the country is only 125 miles from here (Binghamton), so I guess we'll have plenty of water but a little less sun. The ticks have come out from winter as well. Most unfortunate, ugh...parasites. Didn't have these in California where I grew up, but then I didn't have any deer, turkeys or anything except skunks and opossums really, and I grew up in a rural area. Just have to make sure we get some ducks, geese and/or chickens to take care of the little pests. I hear geese make nice "watch dogs" too.

We've been in contact with some folks to see about getting the sewer put in before our permit expires, and visited a few architectural offices in the area as well. We'll see how that pans out, and pics of any "groundbreaking" to follow as they can.

This is a unique castle, and a mine to boot

2011-01-29T17:20:00.000-05:00

Hard Luck Mine Castle. An owner built castle and a mine with a slightly industrial look, lots of metal fixtures. For sale too.

Not much about this one...

2011-01-29T16:52:00.000-05:00

A residence being converted to a castle. I couldn't find anything else about it on the web, so here it is.

Stone Gate Castle, er... Manor I mean.

2011-01-29T16:35:00.001-05:00

Had some spare time today while the kid was taking a nap to peruse the web to see if any new castles had come out of the closet and into the light of the web, sure enough I found one. I must admit that the site calls it a "manor" and not a castle, but I figure it looks like a little castle to me. The site needs some work (or at least it displays poorly on Chrome), but the owners apparently hold classes that teach stonework and stained glass amongst other things. I really like the interior, especially the great hall.

Photo from Stone Gate Manor site.

Add some renders for fun, added "car port"

2011-01-22T13:29:00.001-05:00

EDIT: Removed and replaced car port pic.

Another Design

2011-01-21T17:16:00.000-05:00

One thing that has become abundantly clear with the arrival of our child is that any time at all that I had for hobbies has been pitched out the window with force. I have unfinished stained glass windows that I get to look at in passing on the way to other tasks, CGI ideas that never even make it past my imagination, and the ones that do actually get rendered take 3 times as long to get modeled. That means nothing terribly original is going to come about, but I can still tweak and modify some of the things I already have. So that's what's happened here, I'm sure you'll recognize the resemblance to the preceding models.

A new resource for getting off the grid a little - or just DIY in general.

2010-11-18T12:03:00.000-05:00

I have a new news feed to keep up with, a very interesting site called Low-Tech Magazine. The site's purpose is to point out that things don't always need a high tech solution to accomplish a task and it uses historical references to point this out. A neat little mechanical history lesson!

Now, how does this pertain to would-be castle builders? I guess it's what you make of it. There's information on timbrel vaulting, a more efficient way to build with brick; a link turns up to practicalaction.org that has information on how to build with stone and a host of other back to basics DIY info (a little dire, but good info), or even information on masonry stoves with their uses and design. So, it's not directly castle related info, but it's certainly useful in adding DIY ideas to your to-do list along with maybe making your home a little more off the grid. Worth a look!

Busy

2010-11-14T11:26:00.000-05:00

Yep, the little one is consuming all of my free time. All that spare time I had to peruse the web for castles and doodle my little houses with Sketchup: *poof*. Gone. Now it's the never-ending chain of soiled diapers, feeding and entertaining a 4 month old with all of the inherent baby fussiness, and then scrambling to catch up on the household work that can be done while she naps. Ah, the joys of parenthood!

Doesn't mean I haven't been giving thought to building. We have plans to contract the sewer system this coming year. Our permit for putting one in is only good for 2 years, so we need to get this done sooner rather than later. Otherwise we run into the trouble and expense of having to have the approval re-done, and the potential risk of having code and environmental rules change in such a manner that we would no longer be able to build what or where we plan on the site. This means we'll need to get a site plan done (which will help immensely in my building design effort), likely build an access road/driveway and then find someone to do the work.

First steps are coming soon. Wow.

Adirondack Castle Resurrected? (Leary Castle)

2010-08-15T13:55:00.000-04:00

Back in February I posted a castle in the Adirondacks that a reader had found for sale. Just recently another reader stopped by and commented that she'd found a blog featuring the very same castle! It looks to have been purchased after the original owner-builder's death by the family that is working on it now. Pretty cool!

Looks like the castle is called the "Leary Castle". I'll send them a hello message and see if they want to share any info about their project.

Thanks, Fionnait!

(Image from the Leary Castle Blog.)

Coronado Stone Products

2010-08-15T13:43:00.000-04:00

SYWBC reader Derrick pointed out a castle that used Coronado Stone. It's pretty neat and looks to be huge, but not owner built as far as I can tell. You can see the castle at the Coronado Stone site by clicking Enter Site > Gallery (left hand side) > Residential (from the drop down menu) and then using the slider at the bottom and going just about half-way across with it, the titles are alphabetical and it's under "Country Castle".

The part I'm more interested in is the large variety of products offered by Coronado Stone. I'm sure they're quite expensive, but may be useful for a future castle builder? Soem of it looks great, and they even offer cast frames for arches and doorways that look like stone. Anyway, they're added to the tags of products for castle builders.

Thanks, Derrick!

Time

2010-08-01T10:45:00.000-04:00

My apologies to folks that have submitted comments over the last weeks, I'm sure you've checked to see if they've popped up yet and may have wondered why they haven't. Well, the reason is that we have a new addition to our family, born 24 July, so the time I spent fooling around on the 'puter looking for and designing castles has now been usurped by diapers, laundry, dishes, no sleep and trying to figure out what a screaming baby wants (which is usually food). So, until our little one settles into a routine that allows us a few minutes of free time, I'm afraid this blog will suffer. I'll get to comments ASAP, I promise!

Ah, time to change another diaper....

Comansion Castle (remains) for sale

2010-06-27T11:32:00.002-04:00

I first saw this castle on the Dupont Castle site. I think I might have mentioned previously on the blog that it had caught fire in one of the California wildfires a couple of years back and was badly damaged. Unfortunately it appears that the owner was unable or unwilling to put the castle back together, and the Comansion Castle lot and castle remains are up for sale. (photo from realty agency site)

Old vs. New: Concrete

2010-06-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

Ed pointed out this discussion taking place on another blog regarding the durability of the concrete used in Roman times vs. what we have to work with now. I thought it was really interesting, considering that folks building a castle with non-traditional methods might choose a concrete reinforced structure as a building option.

The author's opinion is that reinforcing concrete ruins it, causing splitting and cracking; adding too much water to the mix is bad (Roman concrete was "zero slump"), that ancient structure's longevity is partial proof of this.

I think he is partially correct. Yes, steel will rust and expand, causing failure of the concrete. Without a doubt. But there are some major differences between then and now in construction philosophy. I'd be willing to bet that an Roman engineer, presented with re-bar and shown its abilities, would have fired half the workforce used to build those massive structures and put it in his concrete!

So, the Romans used rubble walls with stone or brick cladding. This allows for a lot of flexing, and essentially makes a composite structure. Even if the concrete begins to crack, the stone or brick will prevent it from going anywhere. The structures were also massive, many feet thick. This also prevents shifting or collapse. Try building a one foot thick wall using Roman methods, I bet it never makes the 500 year mark, and would probably be lucky to make 100 years.

Also, let's consider that reinforcing concrete allows us to build structures lighter, thinner, and higher than any Ancient Roman could have. It also can prevent us from being buried under our structure in event of an earthquake, even if some of the concrete should fail.

So, while I agree that re-bar is bad for longevity, the alternative is massive structures needing much more time, money and material; and that's from bridges to the slab under your house.

BTW it was nice to see the pics of Rome again, we were just there a couple of months ago and saw a lot of the same places. We ate at that very pizza roach-coach in the foreground of the Pantheon picture.

"Mini-interview" With Stephenson Castle Owner

2010-06-13T09:53:00.001-04:00

Not really an exhaustive amount of information, but certainly good info nonetheless. You can gather the rest of the info from his blog at Stephenson Castle, and what we have at SYWBCE here.

EDIT: He's also shared one of the latest construction pics. Looks to be moving along very quickly for a one-man job.

The Castle Project Castle

2010-06-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

The Castle Project is a tilt-up owner built castle project with a blog. Have a look at the construction site and progress at the website. Very interesting! I looks like the builder is using a DIY tilt-up system.

Eastwind Castle

2010-06-12T12:42:00.001-04:00

Eastwind Castle is in Aiken, SC, on 25 acres. Looks like they have a Ren Faire or festival on the property as well. Looks to be owner built, but no other information other than this article.

Stephenson Castle

2010-06-12T12:07:00.001-04:00

Another owner-built castle! I came across Stepehnson Castle being built in Ohio. It loos like the owner is doing quite a lot of the work themselves, and perhaps is doing the contracting as well. They've elected to use Azar Block, a CMU product that is similar to Faswall block in the way that it is designed to be dry-stacked and assembled very quickly, but Azar is strictly concrete, not a composite type material.

Anyway, the site for the castle is in blog form, and you can see the castle being built. It's definitely worth a look.

UPDATE: I was able to contact the owner, and he was kind enough to share some information about his castle building so far:

As for my castle, the website is about 2 months behind on updates. But, should be updated in the next 2 weeks. I am not skilled in any construction at all. My previous skills include building a pine wood derby car and a bird house in scouts. So, my project moves slow and I spend a lot of time on the site siting scratching my head.

As for the planning, I search typical home blue prints after blue prints until I found one I liked and resembled a castle. Of course I looked at many different options for building and was leaning to ICF, but was afraid of doing it myself and having a costly blow out of one of the forms. So the local concrete supply company had some samples of the Azar block and gave them to me. I was sold when I got home and played with them. I was shocked at the unit price of $3.25 each. However, after a year of waiting, and they could not move them, I had over 9000 blocks available to me at $1.25 each. So, I bought as many as possible, 2 1/2 truck loads.

I have tried to do 99% of the work. I did contract $600 of work for a trackhoe and licensed septic installed to draw septic plans to be submitted to the county. I also paid $125 to get the first course of blocks laid level, after my test footing came out un-even. Ever thing else, I have done my-self with the help of typical construction DIY books.

As for the Azar block, my test building, AKA the water tower I find the product excellent to work with. They are 42lbs a pice which makes a lay person like myself cringe every time I think of laying more block. The first six or seven courses went up fast. The ones higher up slowed us down due to the weight. I did discover, these CMU shed small chips of stone and concrete which do cause un-even places. Now, I watch carefully and dust off all new courses as I build up.

I wish I had more skills because I see my dreams and money sometimes vanish when I can't figure out something I want. Like, I am not sure how much rebar to use. I have been told by masons and contractors that I am wasting money by using to much, but I joke that my castle is going to be around for thousands of years and well with all the rebar and concrete I am using, its not going any place any time soon.

In the main keep, I might hire more skilled labor to figure things out like ceiling beams and roofs. However in the water tower and carriage house, I am building myself working out all the bugs... hopefully!

Great info! It good to know that there are folks that are not experienced in construction out there building a castle, and doing it as inexpensively as they can. Stephenson Castle is going to be high on my watch list, especially as we hope to follow a lot of the same route he does.

From the Department of Useless Information:

2010-06-04T14:21:00.003-04:00

While updating this blog and doing some Sketchup I ran IOGraphica just for fun. It tracks and plots mouse paths and clicks. Pretty useless, but entertaining. For some odd reason, one hour's worth of my mouse tracks and clicks is reminiscent of a picture of the United States.

Faswall block

2010-06-04T11:25:00.007-04:00

Faswall Block

One of the visitors and fellow future castle-builders here suggested this material to be of potential interest. I spent a few minutes looking through the site to get some information about it, and in a nutshell: Treated woodchips with a cement coating formed into CMU-like blocks. It has better insulative qualities than straight CMU, can be dry-stacked, and supposedly is mold-free. Also stated that it is similar in cost to ICF or SIP, and supervised unskilled labor may be used for installation - great for owner-builders, they say.

My thoughts are mixed after reading about it. Cement is hygroscopic, and one should never place wood structure directly in contact with stone or cement, it rots faster; but the site says that rot isn't an issue. I wonder why? Are there additives preventing rot? Also, I'm curious about the engineering data on these blocks: How high can they be stacked? How much weight can they bear? Also, at a cost comparable to ICF and SIP, is this with or without labor? And if the cost is similar to ICF, and ICF provides a higher R value, why go with these blocks at all? Also with the expense of the needed cement reinforcement, the total outlay maybe comparable to ICF or SIP.

I don't mean to sound negative about the product, it looks pretty neat; and I'm all for someone making a green product that is good for an owner-builder to use. I've done lots of research on alternative building methods and materials, and often they don't turn out to be all that they're cracked up to be, so I'm reserving judgment on this one. My concerns may be simply because I'm uninformed. I hope it does well, and certainly would consider it as a material in the future.

Thanks for the link, Gary.

Simulated slate recycled rubber roofing

2010-06-04T11:04:00.006-04:00

Something I've always thought that would look great on a castle or Schloss would be a real slate roof.

Obviously a real slate roof requires a master mason, or at least a highly skilled and specialized team of laborers to attach them to the roof - not cheap! Add to this the reinforced structure required to hold the weight, the cost of installation and materials, and slate becomes unaffordable to all but the wealthy. Certainly unavailable for the wishful builder like myself.

I haven't been able to find a cost PSF for this material yet, but it sure looks good! There are a few places that sell it that I could find online, but of course there's no price, you have to call to find a local installer/distributor.

Anybody besides me think construction material suppliers should get over the "fill out this form" or "call us" shortly followed by a full-press sales pitch method of business besides me? I just wanna know how much 1 unit of "x" material costs!

Anyway, here's some manufacturer's sites, and the have some pretty pics in their galleries.

DaVinci Roofscapes
EcoStar
RuBBur Concepts

Hear ye: The rolls are called -

2010-05-31T19:01:00.003-04:00

- and Castle Freedom, Thornwood, and Tirion are stricken. Castle Freedom simply because the main site is gone, though the creator of that castle's idea has several pages scattered throughout the web wishfully talking about it and his philosophies. Subjective of me, yes; but I don't see it going anywhere. Thornwood has turned into a farm (for now), so no more castle there either. Tirion has fallen off the face of the Earth. I know, Tirion is off in the West and us mere mortals aren't meant to find it, but a website would be nice!

Polls ended:

2010-05-19T10:01:00.003-04:00

What Kind of castle do you want to build?

Big fortress type - traditional looking "stone block"

94 (35%)

Mixed - little bit of stone fortress, but some decorative turrets

111 (42%)

Schloss - less fortress like, quite decorative with turrets, etc...

32 (12%)

Walt Disney Castle!

25 (9%)

Votes so far: 262

How far are you from building a castle?

Man, I'll never get there!

37 (21%)

I've got the land, just waiting for the $$ and/or plans to build!

29 (16%)

1 - 3 years

9 (5%)

3 - 5 years

10 (5%)

Dreaming about it, but I will do it!

91 (51%)

Votes so far: 176

When building your castle, how much of the work will you do yourself (hammer in hand)?

100%, I am the contractor/builder.

0 (0%)
Builder will do things I can't do, heavy work like grading/pouring a slab. I'll do the rest.

0 (0%)
Builder will do heavy work + basic structure + plumbing, etc... I'll do the interior.

3 (100%)

The builder will do it all while I sit back and watch

0 (0%)

Votes so far: 3

Surprisingly few votes on the "Who is going to do the work?" poll. Lots of dreamers out there, and a not insignificant number who actually have the land and are planning to build. The favored look of the castle seems to be semi-decorative, not limited to a stone fortress, but not Neuschwanstein either.

So; suggestions for castle-building and related polls readers might like to see? I'll take a suggestion or two, and if it seems appropriate, put your submitted Q&A up as a new site poll.

And lastly a little splash of color

2010-05-18T15:09:00.002-04:00

Final version

2010-05-17T18:56:00.005-04:00

Final version, plus one that I hacked out the port cochere quick-and-dirty. This resulted in a larger overall structure square footage-wise. With a little more work, the facade would flow more nicely.

Front:

© Jeff Wagner

Back:

© Jeff Wagner

Sans Port Cochere:

© Jeff Wagner

Design advances nicely

2010-05-16T18:32:00.002-04:00

Chugging along with current design

2010-05-15T14:33:00.002-04:00

Updated.

Took a trip to the land again

2010-05-12T15:15:00.004-04:00

...and not a whole lot to report. Quite pretty there when it's all "greened up", we saw deer while we were traipsing about amongst the trees. Unfortunately I can tell that black flies will be an issue, you couldn't walk 20 feet without having to swat an ever-growing cloud of the annoying buggers away. We also discovered that there are actually 3 streams on the property, not just the 1 large one. The 2 biggest combine at the bottom edge of the land, while a small, possibly seasonal, stream meets up close to the junction of the other two. Also, we noted that the plastic "No Trespassing" signs had likely deliberately been removed. We thought the wind had pulled them off, but no... they were all on the ground in the same spot at the end of the land where someone had carried them to the point of the last sign removed. Whatever for? At any rate, we were equipped with aluminum signs and a ladder this time and placed them as high off the ground as we could reach with the ladder. Hopefully they'll be out of reach of the casual vandal.

As a side note, if anyone uses an iPhone, there are a couple of free apps I'd recommend for driving expenses and fuel economy measuring. I wanted to see how much it cost round-trip for tolls and gas, and what sort of economy the car got; so I recommend "Road Trip Lite" for checking economy and "VehiCal" for expenses during traveling.

Sketchup Design Again

2010-04-16T16:21:00.003-04:00

Back at it again. I kept messing with the previous design and found it looked less and less castle-like the more I tweaked it. Some parts of it looked good, the rest didn't, and no matter what I did I couldn't find a way to make it look good. With this design I backed off and made it simpler in some ways and more complex in others. I reduced the half-timber overhang and timber ends, made the port cochere square, and tried to make it look a little more like 2 separate buildings, a gate house and castle. Overall it's smaller as well, giving it a less massive and more cozy feel. As usual, I'll work with it until it works or I get sick of it, and comments are always welcome.

Property visit

2010-04-05T14:29:00.002-04:00

We drove out to the land to check up on things (can't do it as often as we'd like, it costs a bundle in time, fuel and tolls) and had a look around. After signing the papers last year, we placed several signs of the "No Trespassing" variety on the roadside perimeter just as a CYA precaution. Oddly enough, upon our return visit, the signs were gone! Not cracked with pieces hanging on, but removed - along with the fasteners too.

Still working on designs for the house, all recent versions have wound up in the trash bin.

A fellow Sketch-upper and cement caster

2010-02-17T12:53:00.002-05:00

Found this blog while digging through the Google analysis for this site. One of the referred sites was this Centerstone, so I paid it a visit. Seems the author is a fellow "Sketch-upper" and is also doing something I definitely plan on doing: Making cement molds for decorative "stonework". Check it out, looks pretty interesting and you can learn something.

A bit on the pricey side

2010-02-16T15:47:00.002-05:00

Submitted the design to an architect/designer, and discovered that the price will be in the vicinity of $500,000 and upwards for building. That's not going to work; way, way too high. Of course this assumes contract labor, ashlar stone facade, etc... So one could reasonably cut a chunk of the cost of labor off of the price and soem of the materials, but all the same, even after that it might be too high. We'll have to see how much a basic CMU design will cost, with us doing everything else. If we can't get it down to a more reasonable price, I might have to strike my own site from the rolls!

Unknown Adirondack owner built castle for sale?

2010-02-06T22:32:00.003-05:00

A reader stopped by and commented that she'd found this castle online for sale. It looks like a great deal of the external structure has already been done, though the fate of the castle could go either way at this stage, ruin or Camelot. Looks like a lot of those castles in various stages of disrepair scattered around Western European countries. Maybe someone will rescue it? I'll contact the agent when I have some time and see if there's any additional information on the project.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving the comment, Janet!

UPDATE: I wrote to the real estate agency via the website and have not received a response. Sorry folks. If I do get a response, I'll be sure to post it.

Still working on a design

2010-01-26T12:18:00.005-05:00

Yet another modified version of the design I've been trying to bring to life. I've done my best to try to balance things out a bit, but there are some consistency issues to work out. One if the features is starting to irritate me slightly, the port cochere; the building front looks really large with it, but it takes a big chunk out of the ground floor space. It makes it a little difficult to get the best use out of the area provided, but of course the second floor over everything is very usable.

As in the previous model, the building at the back corner is for use as a mother-in-law, possibly as a small B&B area later, and perhaps as an apartment for us as we age and rent the main house out.

The greenhouse is attached to the kitchen, hopefully it can be utilized as a sun room and the heat generated from it can be used to warm the house in the spring and fall - along with some nice evacuated tube solar heating in the winter.

Anyway, the main work at this point is door and window placement, figuring out how to arrange rooms and cleaning the model up. Then to find an architect and hope he/she doesn't wind up "ROFL" and telling me to try something that won't cost $2M. (The building isn't that large! 2,200 s.f.!)

NPR site featuring a few American Castles

2010-01-06T11:31:00.004-05:00

Found this when looking for more castles online. They did interviews with a couple of modern castle builders, specifically Roznik's Castle and Bull Run Castle, and have a clickable map made up with a few castles in it.

Some slightly discouraging information though, I did find out that the stonework on Roznik's Castle was $600,000. Hmm. Half-timber and shingle styles are looking a lot more attractive!

Another castle for sale

2010-01-06T11:08:00.002-05:00

Not modern (in the sense of this site), but interesting nonetheless. Lyon's Castle in California is for sale.

A good castle story

2010-01-06T11:01:00.003-05:00

This isn't by any means a modern castle, but I thought it was good to see that a castle that was going to ruin got some attention. Kimball Castle is in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee, and according to some of the comments on Youtube, has been purchased by a motorcycle shop and is being worked on.

Posting

2009-12-29T22:09:00.002-05:00

I guess this is mostly an administrative issue, but I gotta apologize to readers that may wish to post who are not registered. I've received a lot of spam lately so I've had to shut off the ability to accept anonymous comments thanks to the hawkers of viagra, suspect stocks and whatever else is out there that is clogging up the moderated comments box. So, for now anyway, comments will require a Google or OpenID account.

Yet another version

2009-12-12T23:52:00.006-05:00

Updated version. More square footage, the other was a little small. I'm thinking this might be too big at 2,600 sq.ft., but the corner building that looks slightly separate is intended as a "mother-in-law" apartment for our aging folks, perhaps a rental later, and perhaps an apartment for us as we age and rent the main house. Ideas, ideas...

Not complete enough to post on 3D warehouse yet.

Yeti Stone

2009-11-28T22:53:00.001-05:00

...is no more. At least the website no longer exists. Stricken from the rolls.

Model update

2009-11-28T17:33:00.003-05:00

Yet another update. Getting closer to a very reasonable design. Unfortunately, it seems many of the castle details are disappearing - but then, I did mention getting away from the "crenellated box" style and moving towards a more German Schloss type building. I think the model shows that shift, and I've tried to maintain some of that castle feel to it.

Sketchup update

2009-11-08T11:52:00.002-05:00

Just an updated version of a previously posted model.

Ozark Medieval Fortress

2009-10-25T14:55:00.005-04:00

OK, so this isn't really an owner-built castle that will be someone's home, but it is a castle that is being built by hand a la Guedelon Castle in France.

Check out the website for the Ozark Medieval Fortress. It is designed by Michel Guyot, the creator of Guedelon, and looks to be following the path of construction of the same.

Plenty of information on the website about the castle.

EDIT 5/26/10: NPR covered the castle

Ravenstone Castle

2009-10-25T13:12:00.003-04:00

Ravenstone Castle is located in Harvard, Illinois.

From their own site:

"In 2001, Jose and Rose Michel broke ground on their dream home - a castle in the 16th century style. Truly making the house their own, Rose designed each room, arch and turret.

With plans in hand, the Michel family - including four sons and a daughter - built the castle from the ground up. They rented equipment, excavated the basement, set forms and poured concrete. While they were framing the roof, they realized they could see all the way to the grocery store in Harvard."

So, at a glance, it appears to be another owner-built castle. I'll see if I can come up with any more information.

Land Ho!

2009-10-23T22:56:00.004-04:00

Well, it has happened. Since thinking it might be fun to build a castle several years ago and then starting this blog in 2007, it's been a long road to this point. We've finally got a piece of land. Whether or not we actually build on it is another matter - life has a funny way of changing your plans for you - but no matter what, this land is in a great location and a worthwhile investment. Not the best picture in the world, it was starting to drizzle when we took this picture. Approximately 10 acres should suffice for a fine building. No plans to build anything yet, the market needs to pick up so we can sell our existing home in order to afford any sort of construction loan, so plenty of time to pin down a design and see if life lets us do what we hope to.

New Polls!

2009-10-14T11:36:00.001-04:00

Yep, the title says it all!

Poll results

2009-10-14T11:16:00.003-04:00

Similar to the last set of polls here, there seems to be a disconnect between cost, size and materials used. Lots of respondents want all-natural materials, but also expect to have a huge and expensive castle. I was honestly surprised that there weren't more folks looking to build cheaply using "whatever is cheap or free".

Seems most folks are planning on having someone build their castle for them, which I can totally understand - if one does any amount of serious research in the direction of building a castle (or any home for that matter), the romantic idea of DIY quickly loses its luster compared to the huge amount of work that it would actually take.

To split hairs, the new polls will see what share of the work potential builders will do of their buildings along with some other miscellaneous questions.

Poll Results: What would you build your castle out of?

2009-10-14T11:15:00.001-04:00

All natural materilals such as fieldstone

40 (50%)

Wood frame with stone facade

15 (18%)

ICF with stone facade

8 (10%)

CMU/CMU variants with no facade

4 (5%)

CMU/CMU variants with stone facade

6 (7%)

Other materials such as AAC or Rastra

3 (3%)

Whatever's cheap!

4 (5%)

Votes so far: 80

Poll Results: How much do you expect your castle will cost?

2009-10-14T11:14:00.001-04:00

$10,000 - $50,000 with me doing most of the labor

14 (11%)

$50,000 - $75,000 with me doing most if the labor

3 (2%)

$75,000 - $100,000 with me doing most of the labor

4 (3%)

$100,000 -$150,000 with me doing most of the labor

7 (5%)

$150,000 - $200,000 with me doing most of the labor

4 (3%)

$200,000 + with me doing most of the labor

13 (11%)

As cheap as possible! I'm using local materials, factory seconds, and anything I can find that's cheap or free...

9 (7%)

Less than $100,000 and I'll be using a contractor

2 (1%)

$100,000 - $200,000 and I'll be using a contractor

6 (5%)

$200,000 - $300,000 and I'll be using a contractor

7 (5%)

$300,000 + with a contractor

49 (41%)

Votes so far: 118

Poll results: How big of a castle do you expect to build?

2009-10-14T11:12:00.001-04:00

A cozy castle less than 1,500 square feet

24 (18%)

A modest castle 1,500 to 2,000 square feet

25 (19%)

A good sized castle 2,000 - 3,000 square feet

18 (14%)

A serious castle of 3,000 - 5,000 square feet

23 (18%)

5,000 square feet plus, and I'll need to hire a cleaning staff too...

37 (29%)

Votes so far: 127

Castle in Little Rice, WI

2009-09-15T10:59:00.002-04:00

This looks to be a truly owner-built castle in Wisconsin. Not a whole lot of information about it other than what is in the article. Have to wait and see if more pops up on the web.

Woodstock, Connecticut Castle

2009-09-15T00:03:00.003-04:00

This castle is being built in Woodstock, Connecticut. It appears from what I've been able to dig up that the owner is a bit eccentric (aren't all castle builders to some extent?), and the article seems to confirm that. The castle is quite fanciful, and has features that are more romantic in style rather than defensive in construction. From what I gather the owner is doing none of the work, it's all contracted. Interesting enough to share, I figure - so here you go.

A quick link review

2009-09-14T23:01:00.005-04:00

Checking for dead links on the castles has netted a few changes, and a lot of "no changes at all". Amongst the "wish castles" section, Tower Castle is gone. As far as the rest go, there have been absolutely no construction or other changes updated on the sites except for USA Castle's, who apparently has purchased land and done some preliminary planning to the tune of over $1.3M USD (ouch!). I'll move them from the wish castle to the owner built section once they get a slab poured.

On the owner built castle link section, it appears that Mr. Busboom's shop is going out of business, but the castle still available for events. The Pittsburgh area castle has an updated site with lots of construction photos and more - click on the "castle info" link. Lacey Michele's Castle, New American Castle, and Wing's Castle have a couple of new photos. Here's a site that has some more pictures of Castle Gwynn.

That's pretty much all the changes. I'm honestly not sure what to do with some of the wish castles, I'd hoped that there would be some progress amongst a few of them - plans, designs, hopes, locations, what have you; but the sites are for all intents and purposes, dead. Some haven't been touched in years.

Oh well, I've been running this site for years and haven't anything to show for myself except ideas, ramblings and digital doodles of my castle ideas. Pot calling the kettle black, eh?

A little more information on Roznik's Castle

2009-09-14T11:10:00.009-04:00

Mr. Roznik has very graciously shared some additional photos of his castle. The online picture simply didn't do it justice, it is a considerably more massive structure than the front picture would let on. I count at least five turrets and four floors in height, not to mention the balconies on the turrets themselves. He's also taken the time to have an ashlar stone facade put on, which when considering the surface area it covers, is very impressive. At any rate, here are the pictures for your enjoyment. Many thanks to Mr. Roznik for sharing.

...and another! (On a roll today!)

2009-09-10T19:52:00.005-04:00

This one shifts more in style towards what would be a gatehouse to a properly massive castle. I'm finding I appreciate the "cottage-y" look more and more, it just looks friendlier than a massive stone edifice. This model is pretty basic, and will need a lot of work to bring out the features - I'll be doing updates to it which will automatically update the model in this post. This model I'm liking quite a bit, it ought to be right around 2,000 sf. in total. As always, comments and suggestions welcome.

Incidentally, if you like the gatehouse style too, I found this Flickr group featuring scads of pictures containing really neat old buildings. Should be good for some inspiriation.

Model updated 9/12.

Another design

2009-09-10T09:44:00.004-04:00

Here's a design that I put together in a couple of days; it's a bit of a mashup featuring English, German and Scottish styles. Just throwing ideas out there. Available on 3D warehouse for download.

One step closer

2009-08-27T19:39:00.003-04:00

Well, I wasn't kidding in my previous post whingeing about my forced transfer to a new city for work and my new commute, plus the severely reduced time at home. It shows here in the blog too; I haven't really dug into the web looking for new castles, the ones I've found have been pretty much by chance, and I haven't been working on designs for the home, either. But, some things are progressing. We are just a short time away from sealing the deal on a modest parcel of land. If all goes well, we might be able to build on it in a couple of years; we've got to finish up this place first and wait for the market to look up a little before we sell so the equity can go into a construction loan. Fingers crossed, hope this goes through.

Yet to be named Castle

2009-08-26T07:58:00.003-04:00

One of the readers here has been working on a castle-type building for quite some time and has finished it! It looks like a combination of older style stone architecture and some Spanish influences. Quite an impressive building.

The builder has posted pictures and links to his blog over in our Castle Builder's Forums.

Huge congratulations for completing such a project!

On buying land

2009-08-15T21:56:00.005-04:00

I got asked about things to watch out for when buying property by an anonymous visitor to the site in a comment section to a post. I was going to reply there, but the reply would've been a little long for just a comment, and my hope is that with a post in the main portion of the blog readers may chip in some comments here so that we all can learn something.

First, if you've got a real estate agent, ask them lots of questions. That's why you're paying them lots of money to broker the deal for you. Make sure that they understand what you want to use the land for and can have a good idea of whether it will meet your needs. Mind you, real estate agents generally aren't engineers, surveyors or lawyers too and often cannot provide specific information about exactly what can and cannot be done with the land, but they should be able to point you in the direction of someone who can answer your questions.

Second, ask yourself whether or not the land is truly where you'd want to live. Do you like the community surrounding it? Do you need lots of night-life and entertainment but are looking for land in a rural area where there is no such thing? If you have/want children, are the schools acceptable to you? Are there services nearby such as hospital, post office, grocery stores, doctor's offices, hardware stores, lumberyards, jobs or any of the scores of other things that you'll need to have access to in order to build your home and stay in the area for as long as you want to? Material transport costs can incur noticeable increases in the total price of building a home. Will you need access to these services regularly and wind up spending inordinate amounts of time spent in the car or dollars on fuel just for daily life? Drive from the land to your job during they busy traffic times and see if you can handle doing that every day. It's not easy to wind up with a house being built somewhere only to realize after a while that there are issues about living there (other than the house itself) that will drive you crazy.

Lastly, the land itself. Some of the concerns we've had are things that must be paid attention to no matter what, and others may be only specific to our area - I'll mention everything I can think of.

One is flooding. Talk to an engineer and/or talk to the town hall and make sure that your land is not part of a flood area. You'll have a hard time or next to impossible time getting loans to build on land that is designated a flood area and if you do build there the insurance costs will be much higher (if you can even get insurance), plus you might get stuck with extra construction costs to deal with the possibility of flooding. Flood area avoidance is imperative in my opinion.

Another is environmental issues. Make sure that your land does not have designated wetlands over a significant portion of it, or over where you might want to build. These wetlands may incur significant expense when it comes to your ability to install a septic system, may prevent you from building where you thought would give you the best view or whatever made you desire to build in a specific area, and could incur extra expenses such as running utilities and driveways to a further location. Wetlands can essentially render your lot useless, impractical or unaffordable for building, so make sure you aren't getting them unbeknownst you you, and make sure that there aren't plans in motion by the town/county to expand them on/onto your property.

Mind you, I'm not against wetland preservation, the land we are looking at has wetlands designated on it, and we will not disturb them. In fact we will be happy to have them and will protect them along with the critters that need them to survive, we would consider it our duty. I just don't want to see someone's dream home plans get smashed after purchase because of incomplete information about the property. If you can buy property with wetlands and successfully build your house with minimal/no additional expense, great! I hope you'll consider keeping those wetlands safe too.

Roads. If there is a road near the property, consider what would happen if they decided to widen it for more traffic and how that would affect you and where you built your house. Where I grew up they widened the road twice; the second time we were forced to move our fence several feet in order to provide proper setback from the road. At our expense. Not to mention we lost that land to the county.

How about if you want to build on a hillside - some places require that a road with a certain grade be made to the house so that emergency vehicles such as a fire truck can get to it. Can you afford such a road? It not, will it affect your insurance premiums? How about availability of a water source nearby for fire vehicles? I've been asked about that when applying for homeowner's insurance, and it does affect premiums. It may not be much, but over a lifetime it can add up.

Talk to an engineer or whoever will check the land and determine where you can build and what type of septic you can install. The engineers will determine what type of foundation you will need, whether or not you can have a basement, what type of septic you can have and a number of other things all based on the type of soil you have and how close to the surface bedrock is. Consider the septic alone; if you buy land without it being checked and discover later on when you start the process for building that the engineers determine you must have an above-ground septic, that could mean up to $20,000 in additional construction costs and materials instead of $5,000-$10,000 for a normal in-ground septic. Not a surprise you want at all.

Is there water available? Is it safe to drink? How much does it cost to have a well drilled? How much to have water trucked in if it is unsuitable for drinking?

If you want high-speed internet, is there DSL or cable at the road or nearby? How much to have it brought to the property? How about electricity? How much to have that brought to the house? Trash pickup? Is it provided municipally? Do you have to hire it out to a trash pickup service or will you need to make trips to the dump yourself? If cable/internet is too far away, can you handle satellite and dial-up?

How about taxes? Can you afford them where you're buying the land? How much will the taxes increase when you put a house on the land?

These are just the things off the top of my head that we have thought of while looking for and beginning the process of buying property. I hope it helps, and I also hope that any readers that have experience or other pertinent information about buying land will chime in and give their $.02 worth.

Oh, and last but not definitely not least: Make sure your other half, if you have one, is %100, uneqivocally on-board with this castle-on-a-piece-of-land idea. No matter how much work you put into it, no matter how beautiful the land, if your partner secretly can't stand it or you ignored their opinions on the subject you'll wind up unhappy one way or the other and wind up paying a price. I believe Mr. Busboom says as much in his castle interview here on the site as well. Sage advice.

Good luck with your purchase!

Burke's Castle burns

2009-08-02T13:05:00.002-04:00

I didn't know about this castle, but leaned about it through an NPR article. It was owned by the man who ran Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. Article here: Click Slideshow here: Click

Not an owner built castle, but interesting nonetheless.

Rozniks' Castle

2009-08-02T12:59:00.004-04:00

Rozniks' Castle

My other half discovered an NPR article that talked about modern castles. It must've been a slow news day - no scandals or other events to cover ad nauseam - to cover a fringe subject like this; but that's one of the reasons why we like NPR, they cover some really oddball interesting things like this. At any rate, one of the castles they mentioned was Rozniks' Castle near Farmington, Wisconsin. A pretty darn large castle from the look of it. It doesn't sound like they put too much work into it themselves (hammer in hand, I mean...), but had most of it built by conventional methods. I thought I'd share it anyway, it looks quite impressive.

Not an ex-blog!

2009-05-10T10:54:00.003-04:00

Yep, the blog is still here, along with me. I have several comments that folks have left - my apologies for not posting them - but I have not followed up on, mostly regarding Kasteel Noz. I have seen the website Mr. Noz has up, and when I get some spare time I'll definitely be contacting him to see what he'd like to share about his castle. Thanks to everyone for leaving the comments! On my end, that aforementioned transfer to NY has consumed most all of my spare time, I essentially only get 3 days at home - the rest are on the road where I can't spare much time to be looking for castle-related goodies on the interwebs and the 3 days off I have are spent playing catchup at home.

I know; excuses, excuses...

On the bright side, we have located a property in NY towards the mountainous side of Hudson River Valley that would suit our needs just dandily to build on. The acreage is right, it has a small running stream and is slightly sloping. Can you say millpond? I figure a little water wheel on a millhouse might generate enough electricity for a few lights, if nothing else it should be pretty to see and listen to. At any rate, we've started the ball rolling on the official process, so we'll see how it goes. Pretty exciting actually, a serious step towards a castle!

Comansion Castle burns?

2009-03-20T12:10:00.005-04:00

I was visiting Dupontcastle.com to see how progress was going on their castle and decided to have a look at some of the castles on the site. When I came across Dupont Castle's Kasteel Noz entry, someone had emailed that they thought it had burned along with providing a link to a news video. After watching the video of the fire, it appears that it was Comansion Castle, another California castle. If you watch the video, around 0:38 you'll see the door that matches the one in the DupontCastle.com Comansion Castle post. Hopefully, Comansion will be rebuilt.

As a side note, I've had some folks point to the DupontCastle.com website as a source of castle information. While I certainly appreciate any information whatsoever given by readers, personally I don't want to "leech" off of Mr. Dupont's site. Any castle information posted here I dig up myself by wasting hours on the web searching. This time I've made an exception, I figure an owner-built castle burning was important enough to share via link to DupontCastle.com; but basically, unless the castle owner/builders have a website or someone independently writes or posts about it, I won't write about it here.

Edit: The video has been moved to the Comansion Castle entry on the site.

Interview with Peter Wing of Wings Castle

2009-03-16T12:33:00.006-04:00

I was perusing the web again looking for more castles and double checking some of the older castle sites to make sure that they were still there when I happened across something neat.

Rachel Connolly did an excellent short interview with Peter Wing of Wing's Castle at Squgglebooth.com. Here's a direct link to the video, and a link to the squigglebooth site. There are some nice shots of the castle that aren't available online, as well as the reason why the castle exists, which is: "Why not?"

Hope you enjoy the video, I certainly did.

Also, Castle Rogues Manor has a shiny new website; and Darkling Castle (even though it has ceased to appear much like a castle) has some neat construction pictures, and finally the Home Castle Building site has disappeared.

Yet another castle design

2009-03-07T10:44:00.003-05:00

Here's another sketchup model, this time a split level. The basement is open to a courtyard and the gatehouse. The "hall" is half below grade to remove some of the imposing height it might have, as well as give that side of the castle a more "homey" feel and provide earth-sheltering. I couldn't add much more detail, otherwise it would've gone over the 10MB 3dwarehouse limit. The gatehouse is the same that I've used in the past, and is slightly modified and smaller. I haven't yet put a garage on the building yet. Oh yeah, the little "+" all over the place are from sketchyFFD; it's a script that allows smooth deformation of surfaces - the ground in this case. Comments, as always, are welcome.

Land ho!

2009-03-03T10:26:00.002-05:00

Despite the lack of posting on this site, things are still progressing behind the scenes, albeit slowly. We have settled on looking for a parcel of land in one of the aforementioned areas of New York, well away from New York City. Quite rural, actually. Just what we're looking for. We've contacted a realtor and are making a list of properties that we'd like to have a look at, we'll probably head out that way during the middle of this month or early next month. We've already taken one trip out just to see what it was like and if we'd even consider living there; it's a beautiful area with farmland and small towns, rolling landscape and not too distant mountains.

So at any rate, the idea is to see if we can get 10-20 acres. To be honest, we can't really afford it; (can one ever?) but even so, with the real estate market in the dumps and the interest rates so low, opting not to purchase at this point would be foolish as the land would be completely unaffordable later. I say unaffordable, but land is quite reasonable in the area we are looking, it's just another expense that we don't need. I'd like to think we could plop our big stone house on the land, but it may turn into an investment parcel due to the need to sell our current place first.

Leaded glass

2009-01-07T16:02:00.004-05:00

No, this isn't the unobtrusive link I was mentioning in the previous post :) . This is simply a "you can do it too" post if you want to do your own leaded glass windows for your castle, or just to add that little bit 'o medieval to your house. I'm certainly no Louis Comfort Tiffany or Whitefriars artist, so If I can do it, the rest of you would-be castle builders can too.

For a total outlay of a couple hundred dollars, I wound up with enough glass and tooling to build this (and several other) windows. It's a little expensive up front for things like a glass grinder, cutting grid, scoring tools and the like, and especially the glass considering I broke my fair share before a got wise and took a lesson. My advice to you if you want to make leaded glass windows: Take A Lesson Or Two! It'll save you money in the long run.

I started off with a half-dozen piece pane at the lesson, and this is the first thing I've designed and built myself. I have several more pieces to make, and most are in the Arts & Crafts or Nouveau style. I also have some nice Medieval flavored pieces to make that will come up for sale here, or possibly on Ebay.

If you're on a budget I'd recommend craigslist.org for finding glass and tools, I've bought out 2 other folks selling home hobby studios. I wound up with a lot of glass that would've cost quite a bit for less than retail and I didn't have to pay shipping had I ordered it online.

Mihaly Castle & Studio

2009-01-06T23:11:00.004-05:00

Robert Mihaly Studio

An owner-built castle and studio in Rougemont, NC. This castle has been under construction by the owner, Robert Mihaly, for the better part of a decade. The castle is a multi-purpose facility for the owner; it is not only a residence, but a studio, forge and a canvas for his art.

A very fanciful castle!

NY, USA

2009-01-02T20:45:00.007-05:00

Well, things have changed around here in real life land. My company has closed the branch I in the city I work in completely (one major distraction and PITA), and I have been involuntarily displaced to another location: New York. For the time being, it looks like a commute will be in order, and that will be difficult only being home a few days a week as opposed to my current schedule which allowed me to be home every night in addition to the days off if I chose.

What's my grousing got to do with castles, you ask? Yet another blog disintegrating into whinging and complaining? No. As a matter of fact, this shove out of my comfy-chair lifestyle location is a kick in the pants to get going with building a dream. We will likely move to NY by the end of 2009 and hopefully sell our home at our current location in Massachusetts as well. The plan is that we'll temporarily rent for a little bit in a NY area that we'd consider settling in, get to know the area and see if it's where we want to be for the long haul, and get our finances squared away. We can also finally search for land to build on! The purchase probably won't happen for a couple of years, but compared to waffling over what to build, where to build and when, this is the light at the end of the tunnel. We are looking at the West side of the Hudson due to cheaper land with lower taxes, and we'll take a drive there at the beginning of next month to see the area and how the drive to the metropolitan area will be. I've even come up with a not-so-serious "working title" for the castle: Yanyca Castle (Yet another New York Castle), because there's so many castles in NY already... Trust me, it's not permanent. It'd be nice to build in one of the rural towns more upstate, like Wurtemburg. Wurtemburg Castle. Savillon Castle. Yeah...those names have a nice old-world ring to them.

I'm also getting a little farther along in stained glass (I'm not paying anyone to make my castle windows pretty for me!) and have been working on several designs, one of which is currently on the table being assembled (another distraction). These will be sold to make money with the intent of using it to bolster the finances for a better down payment on property. A non-obtrusive, non-offensive link will appear sometime featuring the pieces as they come up for sale.

Blog hits go the way of the market, Polls

2008-11-23T09:09:00.003-05:00

I have Google Analytics on this site, just to satisfy my curiosity and to assure myself that more than the few folks that post comments are bothering to view the site. The hits have tanked in the last 5 days, literally dropped to almost half, and stayed down. Don't know why; it could be the economy has put a damper on viewer's castle dreams or maybe Google has simply adjusted how hits are counted. Hope it's just the latter.

On another note, I was looking at the poll results so far. The results so far seem to indicate that would-be builders are interested in 5,000 sq. ft. plus castles that cost over $300K, would be built with a contractor's services and are made of natural materials. I get the first three just fine; but there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the first three and the final most selected item, the natural materials. To build an expansive, large building from natural stone using a contractor's services will cost more than $300K, a LOT more. Perhaps respondents are not replying to all 3 polls and the ratio is off. At any rate, there are a lot of big, expensive, stone castles wanting to be built out there.

Another castle building site

2008-11-17T20:18:00.002-05:00

Here's a site that looks pretty new and clams that it's purpose is to take you through the steps of building a castle from planning to moving in. Not much there yet, but we'll have to see what happens. The owner is positioning himself in a pretty narrow market (I speak from experience!); but who knows, in this small community any additional information and support has to be a good thing, right?

Here it is: Home Castle Building

Good luck!

Ann Arbor Campus, U of M

2008-11-17T17:34:00.004-05:00

Spent a couple of days in Ann Arbor, Michigan to take in a Big Blue game (they lost). There are a lot of fantastic Gothic revival buildings as part of the campus, as on many major university campuses, and in the surrounding area. My time as limited, and it was also snowing and raining out so the photos aren't the best. The water on the lens and filters due to the rain threw the focus off on a few occasions as well.

Despite the dreary day, I wanted the photos for ideas and inspiration plus real "how they did it" details.

The devil is in the details.

2008-11-04T12:04:00.004-05:00

No, the blog hasn't died! There are so few castles out there, much less the ones that are on the web, and even less the ones that are owner built. I've "niched" myself out of publication. I guess I could switch blog premises and post all castles being built, heaven knows I see enough palatial homes and, I kid you not, castles being built on Long Island and Westchester County. But alas, that's not what I'm about, and my wallet isn't so fat. Castle dreams and an apartment budget!

At any rate, I'm still working on the most recent Sketchup castle. I've changed quite a bit and added some details. I know I've said it before, but the details are a real pain. Lining up roofs, ensuring there are load bearing walls in the right place, where on earth do I put what room and what to do for windows. All are time consuming, require imagination and more than a few complete "re-dos". I've drifted away from the "stone box" without too many features and headed more towards half-timber and Germanic styles. I've added a pitched roof instead of a plain flat roof, some corbeled windows and just other odds 'n ends. It's still a work in progress; this picture is from the opposite direction of the previous pictures and shows the greenhouse, which is attached directly to the kitchen. I hope to figure some way of capturing the warm air heated by the sun in the greenhouse for circulation around the house during the colder months, plus use the plants as natural air filter for the air in the home. The location off of the kitchen may also allow for use of greywater in the plants, or a specific greywater planter designed to filter and use the water instead of dumping it into a sewer.

SYWBC Poll #1 results:

2008-09-25T12:57:00.005-04:00

Here are the results of the poll, I figure it was a little biased on account folks visiting the site are interested in DIY castles or at least castles in general. There are some new polls up, vote if you wish!

Do you:

Want to build a castle someday?

250 (83%)

Want to buy a castle, old or new?

34 (11%)

Already live in one you've built?

11 (3%)

Think building castles is a silly idea?

5 (1%)

Votes so far: 300
Poll closed

I'm curious about the 11 folks that voted they live in a castle they've already built!

Mother Earth News

2008-09-19T23:01:00.007-04:00

I've mentioned this magazine on the site before as a source of information. To the point: It has nothing to do with castles, but it does with some of the things that one could surround one with. Yeah it's a crunchy-granola magazine and there are some ads for cure-all herbal remedies and positively charged water (which may or may not be something you're into), but overall it's a good source of DIY everything. Considering that we'd like to have our home off the beaten path a little bit, not in the hinterlands mind you but with a little land and peace around it, so we can grow some of our own food and the like. So far it's had fascinating articles on how to make your own cheese from store bought milk and some good gardening information, all budget-oriented. Plus, as I've mentioned before, the website has information and stories about those who have "chucked it all" and moved out of the city and pursued alternative building methods from slipform to adobe. A lot of the articles on DIY information is unapologetically and without ado geared towards low-cost.

So, while it isn't strictly construction oriented, some of the readers here that prefer to be off the beaten path (or even those not) may appreciate the home-grown DIY information that can save you more than the $10 a year subscription.

We spent our hard earned $10 and honestly enjoyed every magazine. Looking at trying the home-made mozzarella with our container-garden-grown tomatoes and basil for an all home-made home-grown caprese salad.

Mother Earth News

Google Groups

2008-09-09T17:58:00.000-04:00

Well, the castle-builders forum Google Group is pretty quiet. I just stopped by to have a look and realized that the place was being hit by porn spammers. Unfortunately this means that any/all comments will now be moderated for the group, not that there are any! :)

Kasteel Noz Castle

2008-09-09T17:36:00.007-04:00

Kasteel Noz is located in Snelling, California.

I know nothing more than what is in this article, and there are several articles on the web featuring this picture and information, but it's great to find another owner-built castle being built. I'll add this to the "need to contact" list of castle builders.

EDIT: I've searched like crazy, even using Google Maps satellite view to try to get more information on this castle. No luck. I'll wait until he makes his information public.

EDIT 05/09: I have received some anonymous comments regarding Kasteel Noz here on the blog, though I am unwilling to post them in their entirety because they possibly contain a legitimate phone number and email information for Mr. Noz and I don't think I have the authority or permission to post someone else's personal data here. What I can do is post a link to the new Kasteel Noz website and allow readers to get contact information there directly from the source. Also, thanks to some other comments that pointed out the Kasteel Noz site, I have sent an email to Mr. Noz in the hopes of getting an interview with him regarding his castle. If that request bears fruit, it will appear on the front page and a line will be placed here to it.

Newman's castle

2008-09-03T09:34:00.003-04:00

Newman's Castle in Texas.

I have very little information about this castle other than it is in Texas. I found this slideshow on one of my searches, but I haven't dug any deeper to see if the castle has a website. The castle looks like it is completely built of CMU, and could be owner-built. Will post more info if I can find it.

EDIT: I've exhaustively searched the web for more information, and there's nothing out there other than the bakery associated with the owner. While I'd like to find out more about his castle, I'm not willing to be a castle-owner stalker and call his bakery and try to get in touch with him. As with Noz's castle, I'll just have to wait until they go public.

Update: You can visit Newman's Castle by seeing a show called "Murder By Chocolate", a dinner theater. Thanks to SYWBC reader Michelle for pointing this out.

Free Sketchup rendering system

2008-07-28T23:12:00.007-04:00

For anyone else that is using Sketchup and wants to have a more advanced rendering system for free, I've started using su2pov. You'll need the su2pov file from here and the Pov-Ray file from here. The combination works with the free version of Sketchup, no need to buy the pro version. I've tried several of the other renderers; IRender, Podium, VRay, and Kerkythea. The first 3 are only for pro and are not free. Kerkythea is free, but it is somewhat advanced for the rookie. It does do very good renders, though. I'd also recommend Indigo as a renderer,it's a step up in complexity from su2pov, but the quality is better too. su2pov isn't the best quality system, but it is simple and relatively easy. You can put lights in a building, sunlight through a window... Lots of possibilities to get that nice-looking picture of your project.

The top render is from su2pov (only took a minute); the second render is from indigo (took over an hour, you can see that the foil is "shiny", and a few other goodies); and the third is Kerkythea, which took about a half hour and did a nice job too, but it takes more work to get realistic textures.

EDIT: After playing with su2pov or a bit, the right-click menus are no longer working. I can't assign or change material characteristics. I've tried reinstalling the plugin, tried different models, but it just doesn't want to work. It may just be a peculiarity of my system, but I can't say that su2pov would be a good choice to download if this is a recurring problem.

Wall system

2008-07-28T13:57:00.005-04:00

Well, reading all those masonry and construction books has paid off a little. I've finally come up with a standard wall system that is readily available and will fit the bill as far as DIY construction is concerned, and created a representation in my trusty Sketchup. It uses standard CMUs and foamboard insulation. To attach the rubble wall, a truss-type anchor system is employed that allows flexibility to prevent cracking of either wall due to different expansion rates. The cores of the CMUs will be reinforced laterally and vertically when/if required, insulation will be in the remainder of the cores.

The interior is the only remaining question. Due to the standard system, it could easily be wallboard and 2x4s or stone facade. The question is about the second or third floor, how would a heavy stone facade be applied and supported by the wall or floor? Still more research to do.

If interested, click on the picture and it will take you to the 3dwarehouse download.

Yet more...

2008-07-23T17:50:00.003-04:00

Yep, still working on the same design. More pictures. Finally got some windows right on the hall, now the rest of the building needs attention.

Click the picture for a much larger version.

Continued...

2008-07-14T12:12:00.006-04:00

Still working on castle model I did a while back. If you check the older posts you can see the iterations it has gone through. The model's square footage is now considerably larger, but that's mostly due to the modification of the great hall. Too bad there wasn't a simple way to make a time lapse of all of the changes, it would be pretty interesting.

So far, in my opinion anyway, the structure is looking better and better. It has more interesting features and several questionable structural designs that would have been difficult and expensive, if not impossible to build, have been removed. As usual, the placement of doors and windows as well as the window design is turning out to be difficult.

CMUs are the way to go...

2008-07-13T08:26:00.006-04:00

After sitting down with a pen and paper alongside my Sketchup castle design with the purpose being to calculate costs per foot of wall, a clear winner showed up immediately. CMUs are by far the least expensive and most forgiving material to use to build the shell of a structure. I don't mean "fancy" split faced or other decorative type blocks, I mean plain-old flat faced standard blocks. A quick look at a 1' thick wall 1000' long full of cement 8' high at $2.78 per foot is over $22,000 at $75/cubic yard of cement, and I've seen many prices for cement over $100/cu yd. Take the same dimensions using $1.30 a block and the cost comes out to be considerably less, even if you raise the cost to $1.50 a block it still wins. Throw in concrete core reinforcement on top of the CMU construction and yet again, the CMU is still cheaper.

Now, folks will argue that one needs to throw insulation in on top of the CMU cost, and I want a stone interior/exterior for the most part, so now we're approaching the costs of ICF. The decision here isn't too difficult either. Due to the unusual design of a castle and the height of the structure, most ICF will not work. Many of the sites only allow for 2 floors of standard height (from the limited information I could find), none mentioned 3 floors of greater height. Gridwall ICF is right out the window. To have these companies engineer something, or to find a specialty ICF, that would meet my needs plus the cost of poured concrete, exterior and interior finishing, ICF gets taken out of the running.

So, in a nutshell, the basic structure of the building will be reinforced CMU with a stone exterior facade; and on the inside, something along the lines of foam board insulation with a stone facade tied in to the main wall. That's pretty much it. This method will allow for rapid construction of the shell and the decorative extras can be added later.

The Castle on Little River

2008-07-07T21:31:00.006-04:00

I came across this site while doing a state-by-state Google search for castles:

The Castle on Little River in Buckholts, Texas.

I fired off an email to Mr. Greiner to see if I could get some information about his castle and construction; he kindly replied and pointed me to a rather obvious button that I failed to see on his site that gives a pretty good summary of the construction of his castle. While I wish I could provide an"interview", I hope the information contained on the site will be found informative and maybe a little entertaining.

Thanks to Mr. Greiner of The Castle on Little River for the reply and information.

Direct link to construction information.