Laninga's Travel Blog

When he was just a boy, Jim Bishop (with parental help) bought a piece of land in the San Isabel Forest.  In 1969 he started building a vacation cottage, using rocks from the surrounding area.  When his neighbors said that it looked like a castle, he thought that was a great idea and embarked on a one man construction project.

He did not have engineering drawings, but built a model on which the castle is based.  And, it has become quite a roadside attraction.  In a way, it reminded me of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, but on a much smaller scale.  It’s hard to imagine that one man can build such a structure.

The entire building is open for visitors.  And if you don’t have vertigo, you can go all the way to the top of one tower and cross over to the other via an iron walkway.  Amazing!

A roadside view

This looks like the model for the castle

Elaborate stone and iron work

You can climb all the way to the top, if you want (we didn’t)

That “bridge” is rather shaky, from what we were told

Some of the inside stonework

Inside the great hall. Lots of filigreed ironwork!

There is even a wedding chapel