The Searles Castle is a French
chateau-style
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
-style house in
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, ...
.
Built in the 1880s, the romantically imagined structure has seven stories and includes a "dungeon" basement. The castle was initially designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White,
a famous New York architectural firm at the time. There are 40 rooms containing of floor space, as well as 36 fireplaces.
History
Originally known as Kellogg Terrace, the castle was commissioned in 1875 for Mary Sherwood Hopkins by her husband
Mark Hopkins, treasurer and one of the founders of the
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...
.
Mark Hopkins died in 1878 and Mary Hopkins married
Edward Francis Searles
Edward Francis Searles (July 4, 1841 – August 6, 1920) was an interior and architectural designer.
Biography
Searles was born on July 4, 1841, in Methuen, Massachusetts, US to Jesse Gould Searles (1805–1844) and Sarah (Littlefield) Searles. ...
, who had designed the interior while the castle was being built. He was thirty years younger than she was. Hopkins died in 1891, but Searles maintained the castle until his death in 1920.
After his death, the structure was used as a private girls' school for 30 years.
It then passed through a variety of owners and uses, serving as a training and conference center for The Home Insurance Company of New York, an all-girls boarding school, and a country club.
Since the mid-1980s it housed
John Dewey Academy, a school for troubled intellectually gifted teens. The castle was listed for sale in 2007 for $15 million.
The Castle was sold to the artist
Hunt Slonem
Hunt Slonem (born Hunt Slonim, July 18, 1951) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies, bunnies, and his tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he ha ...
in 2021 for $3.25 million.
Architecture
In 1888, the property was 229 acres. The stone of the exterior of the castle is blue
dolomite Dolomite may refer to:
*Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral
*Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock
*Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community
*Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
. All the pillars in the atrium were hollowed out except one. The Louis XV Versailles Room was imported from Venice. There had been an organ in the music hall, but it was removed when the castle became the John Dewey Academy,
due to its Christian connotations. There are three safes on the first floor, one in the dining hall and two in the kitchen. The safe in the kitchen had silver in it when the castle switched owners. The wood floors are finger locked construction, meaning there are no nails used anywhere. The castle was one of the first places to have its own built-in walk-in cooler.
The pond was built as a cross specifically so it could reflect the castle from the other side, to add to the beauty when people would have tea by the façade. There is a secret stairway connecting the second-floor bedroom where Mary Hopkins slept to the third-floor bedroom where Edward Searles slept, which they used go between each other's rooms.
The carriage house which currently stands was not the original. The original burned down a few years after the castle was completed, and was replaced by the current one.
In film
The 1996 movie ''
Before and After'' was filmed in the castle. This movie included actors
Liam Neeson
William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed 7th on ''The I ...
and
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throu ...
. The 2016 movie ''Like Lambs'' was also filmed in the castle.
See also
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References
{{Authority control
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Houses in Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Castles in Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Gilded Age
Châteauesque architecture in the United States
Gilded Age mansions