Chateau Laroche

While in Ohio visiting family, I got a chance to see some of the sights. (Assuming all went well with my flight, I'm at home today.) This is not a travel blog, but I'm going to post about my trip anyway. 

I was not the only visitor. My sister-in-law's friend and her 16-year-old daughter were also in town. 

On the 4th of July, Priscilla (blog alias) asked the various local friends about what things she should see while she was in town. The Ohio natives gave her a list, and on that list they all concurred that Loveland Castle was something she should see. 

Priscilla researched via internet what this castle was all about. (Here are some links: Loveland Castle, Wikipedia Page, Chateau Laroche.) She read out loud stories of this Harry Andrews who was declared dead in World War I, and when he finally returned home (and declared alive), his fiancée had married someone else, and he dedicated his life to teaching his Sunday School boys to camp and fish. 

Harry taught the boys the lessons of the knights. The boys said they couldn't be knights without a castle. Harry decided to build them a castle. 

Okay, so Priscilla (and the rest of us) drew some Conclusions about Harry based on the stories of his life. (I will not repeat said conclusions, but we highly doubt the assertions that he turned down fifty marriage proposals.) And we gave the castle some inappropriate nicknames. But Priscilla decided she had to see it. 

Somehow I got invited along on this excursion. My niece Liv decided to join us. Priscilla's daughter was at her skate camp (the reason they were in town), and my sister-in-law ended up with doctors' appointments, so neither were able to join us. 

The castle is outside of Cincinnati. My brother lives outside of Columbus. Those two cities are about 100 miles apart, so the journey took us under two hours. 

We found a guy sitting at a table, and we paid our fee to get in. He directed us to a small room with a video on loop that showed the guy, at that point in his 90s, continuing to build the castle. 

(Not the video, but this shows some of what was in that video. Someone recorded the video, and you can find that here.)

Then we made our exploration. We headed upstairs, a very narrow, very steep staircase. (There was a handrail, which I totally needed.) The whole castle is stunning, but it was a hot, humid day. We were a bit punchy. And our Conclusions were at the forefront. 

In the entry, there was a woman running the giftshop and answering questions. Her father had been a Knight of the Golden Trail (KOGT), and she had been visiting the castle since she was a small child. Priscilla expected that she should also be a knight. Apparently, the knights would not allow female members (except for one exception, now deceased). 

Priscilla had lots of questions. It sounded like the current knights use the place as a sort of clubhouse. Our guide kept trying to go back to the script (she repeated things we had read online before arriving) and told us about the "security" door (with three different ways to open it and a sword at the ready). I got a picture of a different door upstairs. 

The castle is gorgeous. It's amazing how one random guy built this thing mostly from rocks picked up near the river (and from bricks made using milk cartons), even if he was probably a kook and maybe worse? 

We wandered around a bit more, taking in the gardens out back. 

And finally we were ready to leave. Priscilla had questions for the ticket seller outside. Namely, why the woman inside couldn't be a knight? He hemmed and hawed about how women couldn't be knights, and ultimately, neither saw the other's point. (Priscilla was sure he was cursing her out under his breath.) 

The umbrella covers the ticket seller and his table.

The trip was definitely worth the price of admission ($5). It is an amazing structure. But Harry was definitely an odd duck. 

(We met up with my sister-in-law for dinner. We laughed so much about the whole trip. It was a crazy day.)

One more video, this one is a great description of the place: