I've heard about it for years...a crazy castle built at 9000' in the Southern Colorado mountains by an obsessed amateur architect who flouted County regulations and created a tourist destination par excellence. Well, this last weekend, I finally made it--and for once the reality lived up to hype.
The bulding is ludicrous and imaginative and very big. It's mind boggling that any one person (with not a whole lot of assistance from what's been written) could have done a building on this scale. And the adventurous can scale to the very top of it. I was not one of them.
Here you can see some of the lofty iron cages which you're welcome to wander over and around...go ahead, I won't stop you!
The pot bellied stove that apparently once supplied smoke for the Dragon to puff, alas, was removed: fire is a danger hereabouts.
There's even a moat around the building...
I made a rather generous donation to a box that solicited support, alas, before I saw the poster on the snack shop I have embellished with an "x". It would have given considerably less had I seen this first.
Oh well, it's sad that politics should intrude on the pleasure of a truly remarkable place that reminds me more of a cathedral than a castle: complete with onion domes. And of course, since the builder's name is Bishop, a cathedral is all the more appropriate!
*Should you ever visit South Central Colorado, do put this on your itinerary: it's worth it. Here's their websitre: http://www.bishopcastle.org/
Wow, and I thought I'd found the most interesting building-code challenging modern day castle: http://www.thedangergarden.com/2014/01/the-vercler-castle.html
ReplyDeleteWowza!That is an extravaganza! Jensen may well overtake Bishop given time! Oh, to have that energy!
ReplyDeleteMost interesting.
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