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He Invented How Holmes Looks. Then He Built a Castle on the River. · The Red Solo Traveler Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Close your eyes for a second and just like picture
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a detective.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Right. I know exactly where you're going with this.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You probably see a very specific, you know, very sharp
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: silhouette against the London fog. You see the deerstalker hat,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a heavy cloak, and you definitely see a deeply bent
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: pipe just clenched firmly in the jaw. Oh, yeah.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It's a universally recognized image. The outline alone does all
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: the heavy lifting. I mean, you don't even need facial
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: features to know exactly who that is.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Right. That silhouette is an absolute icon. Everyone on Earth
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: knows the image. But honestly, almost nobody can name the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: actor who actually invented it. His name was William Gillette.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Such an interesting guy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the Red Solo Traveler podcast. Our mission
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: today is to explore a fascinating article by Louis about
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: this highly eccentric man. He didn't just invent the most
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: famous silhouette in literary history. He actually took the massive
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: mountain of cash it generated and used it to build
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a bizarre bespoke fortress right on a ridge overlooking the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Connecticut River. Yeah.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Gillette put Sherlock Holmes on the American stage back in 1899.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And he did this with the absolute blessing of Arthur
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Conan Doyle, the original author, which is pretty rare.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And he didn't just play the part for a season
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: or two. He lived it. He wore that part more
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: than 1,300 times. performing it all the way into 1932.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because it goes way beyond just,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you know, wearing a costume. In Conan Doyle's original stories,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes actually smoked a straight clay pipe.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Completely different look.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Gillette completely swapped it out for a deeply curved one.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: And the mechanical reason behind that is just brilliant. He
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: needed a pipe he could firmly clench in his teeth.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: entirely hands-free. That way he could still clearly project his
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: lines to the back row of a crowded theater.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate example of form following function. The
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: physical demands of a live stage performance permanently altered the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: literary history of the character.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It really did.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: That curved pipe, which was just born of acoustic necessity,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is what all the later films and television shows inherited.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, today we think of actors getting trapped by
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a costume, a movie studio designed for them, right? Like
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: they play a superhero once and spend their whole career
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: trying to escape the cape.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: But Gillette is fascinating because he didn't just get typecast.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: He personally engineered the trap from scratch, copyrighted the visual shorthand,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and happily locked himself inside it for three decades. And
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that silhouette... is the door into the house we are
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: about to explore, because the money from that silhouette bought
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a ridge.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: It did. The Holmes money bought a massive estate. But,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you know, before we start walking through the bricks and
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: mortar to see what that money built, we urgently need
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: to correct the timeline here.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Because to understand the architectural intent of this house, we
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: have to dismantle a very persistent, heavily romanticized myth right
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: here in our first five minutes.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the older travel brochures love to sell this tragically
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: romantic narrative. If you listen to local rumors, the story
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that gets passed around is that Gillette built this towering
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: stone castle as, like, a lavish wedding gift. Or as
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: this weeping, melancholic monument to his dying wife.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the actual historical record completely refutes that. William
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Gillette married a woman named Helen Nichols in 1882. But
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: she died on September 1st, 1888, in Coast Cobb, Connecticut.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: She was only 28 years old, which is just tragic.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And the cause of her death is a pretty brutal
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: reminder of the medical realities of the 19th century. She
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Right, because in 1888, surgical removal of an inflamed appendix
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: simply wasn't a viable medical option yet.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: It was basically a death sentence. Exactly.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And Gillette was deeply devoted to her memory. They had
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: no children. He never remarried. And when he passed away
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: decades later, he was actually buried right beside her in
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the hooker plot at Riverside Cemetery in Farmington.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But Farmington is over 40 miles away from the hill
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: where the castle sits. And more importantly, the dates completely
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: destroy that romantic ghost story. I mean, Helen died in 1888.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Construction on the estate, which he called Seventh Sister, by
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the way, didn't even start until 1914.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that 26-year gap in time. You
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: simply cannot look at this building as a monument to
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: fresh grief or a shrine to the past.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't make sense. Right.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: The architecture doesn't support that read at all. This structure
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: was fundamentally a 1919 retirement machine.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: A retirement machine for a childless Hartford actor who was
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: just suddenly flush with an unbelievable amount of cash. Basically
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do with the second
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: half of his life. Yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And that fortune, which is often cited at around $ 1. 1 million,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: was astronomical for the 1910s. And the entire project almost
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: went somewhere else. Gillette was originally scouting property to build
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: on Long Island.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly what you did with theater money back then.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: You went to the Gold Coast of Long Island and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: built a sprawling Gatsby-style mansion.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But he was a man of the water, and
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: he owned a houseboat named the Aunt Polly. While he
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: was running the boat up the Connecticut River, he looked
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: up from the deck and spotted a specific ridge. Yeah,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: it was the southernmost of Seven Hills, known locally as
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the Seven Sisters. The sheer geography of this 200-foot wooded
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: bluff just dropping down to the river's current totally captivated him.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So he completely scrapped his Long Island plans and moved
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: all his steel to that east bank.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Wait, you mentioned steel, which feels like a contradiction. When
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you view the estate from a distance, maybe from the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: deck of the Chester Hadline Ferry down below, it looks
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: like a medieval ruin. Our source even describes it as
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: looking like a stone joke on a ridge.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So wait, he didn't just write a check for a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: European replica.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. It is absolutely not a Loire
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Valley knockoff, and it's not a medieval fortress built to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: withstand a military siege. The construction is surprisingly modern and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: entirely bespoke.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, so how do they build it?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Well, a framework of the house is actually a skeleton
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of steel I-beams. The local field stone you see on
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the outside is essentially wrapped around that modern skeleton.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's clever.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The steel bears the structural load, which allows the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: stone to act almost as a theatrical skin. That makes
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Built between 1914 and 1919 by
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a Hartford firm called Porteous Walker, they had about 20
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: men on site. And it was fully modernized, right? Electricity, steam, heat. Oh, yeah.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Top of the line for the time.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: But the true obsession really reveals itself in the woodwork.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: The source article highlights the door latches. There are 47
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: wooden door latches in this house, and not a single
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: one repeats.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Right. He employed five master carpenters who worked extensively with
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: southern white oak. Every single time a door needed a latch,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Gillette treated it as a brand new mechanical puzzle to solve.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That sounds exhausting.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: It really was. Instead of just turning a standard brass knob,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Opening a door might require you to pull a hidden
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: wooden pin that releases an internal counterweight. And then the
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: next door might rely on a complex system of interlocking
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: wooden gears.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Being the foreman on that construction site must have been
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a daily nightmare. You couldn't just order hardware from a catalog.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: You had to invent a new machine just to keep
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the pantry closed. The result is a language of woodwork
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: that entirely justifies a visit. especially on the top floor
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: where he housed his library and his art gallery.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And because Gillette dictated every mechanical puzzle in every sight line,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the interior of the house completely defies normal residential logic.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: If you want to understand this building, you have to
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: abandon the idea of a traditional floor plan.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: You really do.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: You have to analyze the interior as pure stagecraft.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Right, because he wasn't building a center hall colonial for
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a quiet domestic life. He designed a space engineered for continuous,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: controlled performance. I was totally stunned reading about the secret
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: stair in the foyer.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, the entrance perfectly captures his theatrical mindset. The heavy
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: wooden front door opens into this intentionally dimly lit space.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: When guests arrived, Gillette would play the gracious host on
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: the ground floor.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: He'd instruct them to park their heavy travel trunks in
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: a specific alcove. And the moment they turned their backs
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to settle in, he would utilize a concealed staircase.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But this wasn't just like a hidden door, right? It
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: was operated by an intricate system of mechanical switchgear.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he would pull a specific lever, a section of
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: the paneling would quietly give way, and he'd slip unseen
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: right up to the second floor.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? So he magically appears upstairs?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. While his guests were still looking around the ground
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: floor for him, he would magically appear on the balcony
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: above them, leaning over the railing as if he had
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: been there the entire time.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: He essentially installed teleportation in his own foyer just to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: orchestrate a dramatic entrance. That is incredible. And the great
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: room takes this voyeuristic control to an even higher level.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a massive 1500 square foot living
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: space with built in oak seating and game tables. But
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the genius and I don't know, maybe the slate paranoia
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: lies above the room.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Right. On the observation deck overlooking the great room, he
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: installed a highly sophisticated system of mirrors. And this wasn't
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: simple eavesdropping. He was essentially treating his own living room
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: as a theater stage, and he built himself a director's booth.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The psychological weight of those mirrors is just fascinating. He
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: could secretly monitor his guests from above, watch their interactions,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: see exactly where they were standing, and just sort of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: gauge the mood of the room.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And he used that information to time his descent perfectly.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Just the way an experienced actor times a curtain call
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: to maximize the audience's applause, Gillette would step onto the
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: stage of his living room at the precise psychological moment
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: for maximum dramatic impact.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: He weaponized the architecture of his own home to manipulate
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the people inside it. I mean, that is wild. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: he extended this bizarre mechanical logic to everyday objects. too.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, everywhere in the house.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Like he couldn't stand the thought of wooden chair legs
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: scraping his pristine oak floors. So he installed a literal
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: rail system and put his entire dining room table on track. Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: He even tailored the basement to his exact physical dimensions.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Gillette was a tall man for the area. He stood
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: six foot three. He designed this subcranian workshop for his tinkering,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: but his stubbornness wouldn't allow him to stoop or bend
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: his neck.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So what did he do?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Well, rather than excavating a deeper foundation, which would be
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the normal solution, he built a custom stairway to nowhere
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: and cut a precise notch directly into his heavy work surface.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: No way!
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this allowed him to step down into the floor
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and stand perfectly upright while working.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: That is so specific. And he didn't just build architecture
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: for himself either. We have to mention the cats.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: We can't forget the cats.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Gillette and Helen never had children, but he had a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: small army of felines. Tour guides estimate he kept somewhere
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in the high teens. The source article jokes to treat
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the number as a lot of cats, not a census.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And he built a massive wooden cat castle right there
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in the great room to accommodate them.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, most people
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: build a house to fit seamlessly into their daily lives, right?
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: They want a functional kitchen, comfortable bedrooms, maybe a relaxing couch.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Gillette completely flipped that paradigm.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: His identity as a stage performer entirely dictated his domestic space.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Three well-placed theatrical gizmos meant far more to him than
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: having 24 standard functional rooms. He built a machine for living,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: but the living was an endless, curated performance.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean when the performance ends? Like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: what happens when the ultimate control freak, a man who
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: orchestrated every sight line, every footstep, and the mechanics of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: every single hinge in his home, finally has to leave
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the stage? Because he passed away on April 29, 1937,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and you would assume the performance ended there.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: You would assume that, yeah. But he actually attempted to
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: direct the play from the grave. When his executors opened
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: his will, they didn't find, you know, a grand philanthropic
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: gesture to an acting guild or a romantic dedication to Helen.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: What did they find?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: They found a vicious, unyielding veto.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Right, because he was terrified of what would happen to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: his puzzle box. He explicitly wrote in legally branding ink
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that he would consider it more than unfortunate if he
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: somehow remained conscious of mankind after his death. To find
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: his stone walls and his estate in the possession of, quote,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: some blithering saphead who had no conception of where he
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: is or with what he is surrounded.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Blithering saphead. It's just such a perfect phrase.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: He knew exactly how wealth often operates. He dreaded the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: idea of someone with deep pockets and zero artistic taste
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: buying the property, tearing out the 47 bespoke latches, ripping
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: down the observation mirrors, and converting his masterwork of stagecraft
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: into just a conventional, boring mansion.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Insulting hypothetical future buyers as blithering sapheads from beyond the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: grave is just incredible. And the wildest part of the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: story is that the executors of his estate were seemingly
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: terrified of disappointing his ghost. They took this mandate incredibly seriously.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: They really did. In October of 1938, they held an
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: auction for the estate. A legitimate bid was placed for $ 35, 000.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And keep in mind, in the late stages of the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Great Depression, that was a highly substantial sum of money.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: But the executors flatly rejected it. They feared the buyer
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: wouldn't appreciate the property's eccentricity. So they held on to
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the estate for five more years. just waiting for a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: buyer who wouldn't be a saphead.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you today? It
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: means Gillette's cranky, highly specific will is the exact reason
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the state of Connecticut owns that spectacular hill. In late 1943,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the state stepped in and paid $ 30, 000. Gillette Castle State
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Park officially opened to the public in 1944. And because
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you protected the site, you can walk the grounds, look
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: at the river from the stone pavilion, and explore the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: exterior for absolutely free.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Gillette's cranky will didn't just save the indoor stagecraft, though.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It accidentally preserved his massive outdoor engineering projects for the public, too. Though,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: if you visit today, you need to firmly manage your
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: expectations about what is actually left out there in the woods.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is a crucial warning. Because it sounds amazing
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: on paper. Back in 1927, Gillette decided to build a three-mile,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: quarter-scale narrow-gauge railroad snaking all around the steep grades of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: his property.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Which is just, I mean, who does that?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Right. He had tunnels, trestles, wooden bridges, and terminals named
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with classic showman flair. He had Grand Central up near
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the house and 125th Street down by the river.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: It was a fully functioning miniature transit system. He utilized
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: both a steam locomotive and an electric one. and he
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: took great delight in taking his terrified guests on these fast,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: harrowing rides along the edge of the bluff.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: But do not go to this park today expecting to
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: buy a ticket for a train ride. You will be
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: sorely disappointed.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Very disappointed.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: After Gillette died, the rolling stock was sold off and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: shipped over to Lake Compound's amusement park. All that remains
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of the mechanical train on site today is a single
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: restored electric engine, and it's just sitting passively as a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: display piece under glass in the visitor center.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: The ride is now a trail. You actually... Hike the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Old Railroad Grade, which is designated today as the Blue Trail.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And it's a great hike.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's beautiful. It offers roughly a mile and a
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: half of easy to moderate walking. You hike directly over
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: his old wooden foot bridges and you walk through the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: dark 75-foot tunnel he had blasted straight through the solid
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: rock of the hill.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: It is a fantastic height that drops you right down
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to the water. And actually, if you time your hike
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: right and look down into the river during low tide,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you might spot the burned skeletal remains of his original houseboat,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the Aunt Polly.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the very same boat he was standing on
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: when he first discovered the hill. It tragically burned in
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a fire in 1932. But just remember, you are getting
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a trail, not a ride. Right.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And there is one more major logistical trap we need
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: to clarify for anyone planning a trip. The Connecticut River
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Valley features several distinct tourist attractions. Many visitors decide to
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: spend an afternoon taking the Essex Steam Train and the
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Becky Catcher Riverboat.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Which is a beautiful excursion on its own.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: It is a lovely day out. And from the open
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: deck of that riverboat, you will look up at the
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: east bank of the river and clearly see the striking,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: towering facade of Gillette Castle just looming 200 feet above
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: you on the ridge.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: But. And this is a massive distinction. That is not
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the castle tour.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You are merely viewing the exterior sight line from
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: the water. The West Bank train and the riverboat operate
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: on a completely separate clock. They're run by a different
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: organization entirely.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Right. They don't drop you off at the door.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: No, they do not drop you off at the castle's
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: front doors. Do not pretend they are the same afternoon
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: itinerary if your actual goal is to explore the interior
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: of the house.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: If you want to experience the 47 bespoke latches, the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: switchgear staircase, and the mirrors looking down into the great room,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you have to actively book the interior tour. The source
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: article makes this abundantly clear. You need to go to
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the Reserve America website in advance and buy the $ 6
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: time slot for the Gillette Castle State Park tours.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do not simply show up on a crisp, beautiful
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Saturday in autumn and expect to walk right through the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: front door.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It won't happen.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: The tours run on a strict timer every 15 minutes.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: The groups are capped at very small numbers, usually a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: dozen to 18 people max, and walk-ups will absolutely fail
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: on dizzy days. Treat the ticketed interior house as the
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: main event of your visit, and the free hiking trails
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: and river views as the fantastic bonus you enjoy afterward.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: So let's bring this all full circle. William Gillette took
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the immense fortune he earned by giving the world the definitive,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: unmistakable silhouette of Sherlock Holmes, and he poured every single
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: cent of it into a private puzzle box on a
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: public river. a 1919 retirement machine protected from sap heads
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: by a very forceful will.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question, though. When you look at
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the totality of William Gillette, you see a man who
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: spent the entire second half of his life curating a
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: physical space where he maintained absolute, unyielding control over every entrance,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: every exit, and every sight line.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he really did.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: The mechanical stairs, the overhead mirrors, the dim lighting. It
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: was a monument to dictating perception. In our modern era,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: where we broadcast our unedited lives constantly on the internet,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: where we are always visible to a global audience. What
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: does it mean to build a physical stone fortress entirely
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: dedicated to dictating exactly how the world is allowed to
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: perceive you?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: It's like a house functioning as a physical, real-world Instagram
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: filter constructed entirely out of southern white oak and local
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: field stone. It really makes you think about the complex
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: walls we built to project who we want to be.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And to think, it all traces back to a deeply
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: bent pipe and a deerstalker hat, a carefully engineered image
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that eventually bought a mountain. Thank you for joining us
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: for this exploration. Signing off on the Red Solo Traveler podcast,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: go out there and find your own castle.