We decided that we would go to Boldt Castle and Singer Castle today then spend the night in Clayton.
Boldt Castle is a unique Love Story. Mr. Boldt (supposedly only his doctor called him by his first name) was an immigrant that worked in hotels. He managed to work his way up and ultimately was the owner of several hotels and the Proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria. He became quite wealthy. He and his wife loved the thousand Islands. He bought Hart Island and decided to build his wife a dream castle. He had the island renamed to Heart Island, reshaped into a Heart and hired an architect and started the largest construction project in the area. Unfortunately just months before its completion she died. Mr. Boldt stopped all construction and never returned to the Island. It remained neglected for many decades until the State restored the property. It is quite beautiful with Tiffany Stained glass. You can just imagine what it would have looked like if it had been completed.
Singer Castle is about 10 miles East on Dark Island, and is a completely different type of Castle. It too was built by Mr. Frederick Gilbert Bourne that lived the American dream. Bourne began as a janitor at Singer Sewing machines company and worked his way to president. The Castle was designed after inspiration from Sir Walter Scott’s novel about Woodstock Castle (1832), it has secret passageways that allowed the servants to see into the parlor and dining rooms to monitor the guest and attend to their needs before they were called. Two Thousand loads of topsoil were brought in to cover the rocky island, that would have been a nice sitework contract in 1902. Here we got a guided tour and enjoyed the information about the Castle. Imagine that it sold in 1965 for $35,000 and resold in about 2005 for 1.5 million. To get a tour of the secret passage way you have to rent the Island for the night, $700.00 which includes Dinner and Breakfast. You sleep in the castle and have exclusive use of it.
We left there and headed to Clayton, luckily we were able to get the last spot on the City Marina Wall. There was just enough room to squeeze us in, we had plenty of help from the boater we were squeezing.
A very fun day.
