Outside, the stone walls tell you it could stand forever.
Upstairs, though, the creaking and dust that sprinkles down with each step, plus the wood-splintered holes in the floors tell a different story.
It’s an enigma, a structure of contradictions, a must-see landmark with a breathtaking view of Lake Winnipesaukee that is off limits to the public. It’s a valuable site, once fit for a king, that nobody seems to want.
David Jodoin – the current owner of this extraordinary flashback in Gilford – and his family used to live on the property, their home just a few hundred feet from the castle.
“I raised two sons there,” said Jodoin, who has since relocated to his native New Bedford, Mass. “They were both in Boy Scouts, and it was like you are waking up and you have nature as your own background.”
After nearly 60 years of serving as a part-time party outpost for high school kids (the graffiti proves that) and representing failed deals, Starkey Realty of Concord has a pending purchase and sale agreement in place, hoping to convert the castle into a wedding venue.
Nothing is final, though, and it’s not the first time that someone with big ideas has swept in to exploit the beauty of Belknap Point.
“It’s kind of under wraps,” Patrick Starkey, who co-owns the realty firm with his wife, Melissa, told me by phone this week. “It’s a process and we’re actively seeking it, but it’s a big process.”
The setting seems perfect for romance. The site equally divides your attention, with a view of Lake Winnipesaukee and green trees and the White Mountains on one side, and the castle – the summer home for late railroad magnate Benjamin Kimball – on the other.
Kimball was local all the way. He was born in Boscawen, settled in Concord at the mansion abutting the Capitol Center for the Arts, and worked his way up from master mechanic, to manufacturer of iron and brass products, to leader of the Concord and Montreal, and Boston and Maine railroads.
The castle, built in two years and finished in 1899, has been uninhabited since Kimball’s daughter-in-law, Charlotte Kimball, died in 1960, leaving ideas and visions and discussions on what to do with her property.
Charlotte Kimball left behind a trust with hundreds of thousands of dollars that mysteriously vanished. Even her vision for the castle and its sister buildings, built on 20 of nearly 300 acres, had no clear plan, at least in her will.
But documents and those who knew her have said that Charlotte’s main concern wasn’t the castle at all, but, instead, all that view-dominated land, which she wanted for a nature preserve on the site, not for commercial purposes.
The result is the 260-acre Lockes Hill Trail, public land that is separate from the privately owned castle and its surrounding property.
“She hated the castle,” Jodoin told me by phone. “She thought it was cold and damp.”
That, of course, is what castles are all about, and this one looks like King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table might have stopped by one day for lunch.
The sense of history radiating from the castle, hidden from view until a sharp left turn up a long, gradually-rising road, smacks you in the face with no delay, unlike the state of disrepair, which takes a closer look before making its presence felt.
Once you pass the former Jodoin-family home, which is also for sale, there’s a fence surrounding the castle, ordered by the town for safety reasons.
But it’s been pulled down in a 30-foot section, flattening the grass below, its posted sign – “Live watch security protected” – reading like a bad joke. Boards over windows have been ripped away and broken through.
The once-white stone is faded gray, and anything metallic is baldy rusted, including ornaments on the roof and any locking systems on doors.
Inside, though, is where you realize the place is doomed. Jodoin gave us permission to look around.
Splintered wood, holes in the sagging floors, debris, fallen doors, smashed windows and turned-on-their-side bathtubs dominate the landscape.
There’s a can of Bud Light on the floor, along with graffiti everywhere, including a beautifully colored image of the old Weirs Beach sign, with its curved red arrow.
Back in the 1970s, long after Charlotte Kimball’s death, the caretaker remained in his own small home on the grounds and chased away kids with a rock salt blast from his shotgun. But he’s long since passed and the place is often a free-for-all.
“The years have taken its toll long before we got there,” said Jodoin, who invested in the property in the 1990s and has owned it outright since about 2000.
“We tried to save the castle at first, seal it and boarded up all the windows and doors, but as fast as we put it up, the vandals would keep ripping it off, use a crowbar to pry it open. It’s like a rite of passage for high school students to go up there and party.”
There are still signs of grandeur, however. Like the giant living room, with its wooden poles standing firm in front of a huge fireplace. And the octagonal sky window ceiling above an octagonal, second-floor landing. And the massive archway entrances leading to the outdoor veranda, and the four spacious bedrooms upstairs, each with its own fireplace.
There’s also a carriage house and the caretaker’s house, not to mention that view, yet no one has sealed a deal to create an official attraction there.
Through the decades, ownership passed from a charitable organization via Charlotte Kimball’s wishes, to the Attorney General’s Office, to the town of Gilford.
Documentation from 1999 shows investment opportunities that never got off the ground, including one to turn the castle into a 40-room bed and breakfast. Investors have backed out, and the town doesn’t want to pay for any upkeep.
“There are some who have some feelings of disappointment who’d like to see it all preserved,” said John Ayer, Gilford’s planning and land use director. “It’s the kind of thing we have seen over the years where occasionally someone comes along to check it out to see what they can, then they disappear.”
That may soon change. Recent Gilford planning board minutes reveal that the Starkeys and local architect Sheldon Pennoyer “are interested in developing this site into a premier wedding and event center.”
The hope is to close the deal sometime this summer, according to the minutes.
“(Pennoyer) said the castle is currently in poor condition,” the paperwork continues. “Pennoyer said the building is salvageable as a garden but not as a building. He described how they are thinking of modifying the building to incorporate it into the site by taking out the interior floors, lowering the walls somewhat and reinforcing them with steel.
“He also described how they would add new construction to the site that would tie in with the castle.”
“Call me in about a month,” Patrick Starkey told me, “and I will have more information for you.”
Meanwhile, Jodoin waits. He knows the castle will never return to its old form, and he hopes teens will stay away and let it rest in peace.
There’s nothing left inside beyond the vibe from another era.
“Rumors abounded that all the furniture was sold off and what wasn’t sold off was stolen,” Jodoin said. “So there are people around the Lakes Region who have pieces of that castle in their house.
“But they’re never going to admit to it.”