A man’s home is his castle, but if he’s got a jones for medieval architecture and a lot of ironstone lying around, who’s to say he can’t fill his yard with castles, too?
Last week’s ‘Where‘ featured a pair of stone pylons resembling castle turrets. To our surprise, none of our readers identified them or their location, which is in front of the house at 80 Church Street in Little Silver.
The house was built in the 1860s by J.T. Lovett, who founded Monmouth Nurseries and whose estate once extended to the Shrewsbury River, says the home’s present owner, Andrew Balto. But in the 1920s, owner Lewis Eastmond, a retired railroad engineer, started to indulge his fondness for castles, transforming the property in ways that delighted his children and grandkids.
Using indigenous ironstone, Lewis built a castle large enough to play in atop a faux stone mountain in the backyard. His survivors liked it so much they somehow managed to truck it away when the estate was sold. They left the mountain behind, says Balto.
The pylons at the street end of the walkway stayed, too. “The reason they’re still there is that no one could take them with them,” says Balto, who has owned the house with his wife, Catherine, since 1993.
The structures have arched windows that allow passersby to look inside. There, you may see in the dimness a stairway that travels the perimeter. The interiors were once lighted, but the wiring’s gone bad, and replacing it would require digging deep beneath the massive structures, one of which has a crack that could endannger it, says Balto.
“They used to glow at night,” says Balto. “It must have been very neat.”
Still is, in its way.
Now, to this week’s image. Know the spot? E-mail your answers, please.
