“Knapp’s Castle.” Completed in 1920 by businessman and civil engineer George Owen Knapp, this mountain lodge was originally built on a parcel of land in the Santa Ynez Mountains along San Marcos Pass, known then as the Santa Barbara Forest Reserve. If you find castles creepy, then what could be creepier than an abandoned castle? Tucked away in the Los Padres National Forest, high above the Santa Ynez Valley and Lake Cachuma, you’ll find the former San Marcos Mountain Lodge, a.k.a.
It’s a lot to see in one trip, so you’ll have to return a few times – and take in one of their “Living History” evening tours in the spring and fall – to see all of the wonderful architecture and tile work designed over the course of three decades by groundbreaking female architect Julia Morgan. In fact, it’s so big with all of its gardens, pools, statuary, fountains, and zebras that they’ve got three different tours to choose from. Built upon what Hearst named “Enchanted Hill,” the main building – Casa Grande – is actually only one of four places to sleep in the complex, which has a total of 165 rooms (58 of which are bedrooms). The creation of publishing baron William Randolph Hearst, it fits the bill in terms of lineage, opulence, sprawl, and drama – all the qualities you’d find in any good English castle. Hearst Castle is probably the first to come to mind when you think about Californian castles. And fortunately for the rest of us, you need not be a Sir or a Lady to go visit any of these six great castles in California. They’re just not very… medieval.Ĭalifornia was (and is) such a land of opportunity that if you wanted to live in a castle, you could just build one yourself. Just because California’s history is relatively new, compared to that of England or the European mainland, doesn’t mean we don’t have history.Īnd although we’ve had neither court jesters nor Knights of the Round Table, we’ve got our fair share of castles.
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