Castles may be strange bedfellows in New England, but one in Connecticut is set to reopen its doors this weekend.
Following a $480,000 restoration project, Gillette Castle in the south-central Connecticut town of East Haddam will reopen with a soft opening Saturday. A full reopening with tours of the historic structure will begin May 27.
Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, Connecticut, is scheduled to reopen this month. (Photo: … [+]
Gillette Castle sits on a hill in the lower Connecticut River Valley and was built 1914-1919 as the retirement home of actor William Gillette. The property was officially named the Seventh Sister Estate, and Gillette insisted it wasn’t a castle, according to the Friends of Gillette Castle State Park, a nonprofit preservation and restoration group.
The exterior of the 14,000-square-foot mansion, though, surely looks like a medieval castle, and the interior feels like one. It contains 24 rooms, including a 1,500-square-foot living room, a library, two tower rooms and a greenhouse.
Gillette Castle cost $1.1 million to complete. It was built of fieldstone collected at the property and nearby and supported by a frame of steel I-beams, according to the Friends of Gillette Castle State Park. Five carpenters hand-carved southern white oak to create the woodwork, including wooden light switches and elaborate wooden latches for 47 one-of-a-kind doors.
Gillette, who was born in Hartford in 1853, was best known for starring as Sherlock Holmes in more than 1,300 plays during 33 years on stage. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the fictional detective’s creator, gave Gillette permission to write the first authorized play adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes novels.
William Gillette died at age 83 in 1937, and the state of Connecticut bought his East Haddam property six years later for $30,000. In 1944, Gillette Castle State Park opened to the public as a museum and a state park.
If you cannot visit the castle, the state of Connecticut provides a virtual tour.