Gillette Castle, Connecticut

Travel 4 Minutes

Atop the most southerly hill of a chain of hills known as the Seven Sisters sits the retirement estate of noted actor, director, and playwright William Hooker Gillette. Named the Seventh Sister by Gillette, the property’s focal point is a 24-room stone mansion reminiscent of a medieval castle.

William Gillette was born in 1853 in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, Francis, was a Yale-educated lawyer, farmer and prominent politician who served a term in the U.S. Senate. His mother, Elisabeth, was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut. Will grew up in the Nook Farm neighborhood of Hartford with the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) as neighbors. Will left home to pursue an acting career and went on to become one of the most successful and significant stage actors in American theater at the turn of the 20th century.

William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes

William Gillette’s most recognized role is that of Sherlock Holmes. With the permission of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the fictional detective’s creator, Gillette wrote the first authorized play adaptations of the novels. Beginning in 1899, Gillette went on to star as Sherlock Holmes more than 1,300 times over the course of 33 years. Gillette originated and popularized many common features of the character: the deerstalker cap, Inverness cape, curved pipe, magnifying glass and the phrase “elementary, my dear fellow” (which later evolved into “Elementary, my dear Watson,” one of the most recognized lines in popular culture).

Personal Life

William Gillette married Helen Nichols, an actress from Detroit, in 1882. In 1888, she died from a ruptured appendix at the age of 28. Will promised her that he would never remarry. He outlived Helen by 49 years, staying single and childless for the rest of his life.

Building The Castle

The Castle was meant as a retirement home. As William Gillette insisted that it was not a castle, the official name of the property was the Seventh Sister Estate. Informally, it was the “Hadlyme stone heap” or simply “the pile of rocks.” Design of the Castle and all the quirks and eccentricities therein was done by William Gillette. The Porteus-Walker Company of Hartford was hired as the general contractor.

Construction was started in 1914 and completed in 1919, with Gillette later modifying the building, including the expansion from 1923 to 1926. As a finished product, the 14,000-square-foot building contained 24 rooms and cost $1.1 million to complete. Work on the home was done primarily by a team of 20 men. The house is built of fieldstone collected from the property and surrounding area. A team of five master carpenters created all of the woodwork for the Castle, carving southern white oak by hand. The entire structure is well supported by a frame of steel I-beams.

For the time, the house had all the modern utilities. Electricity was provided by generator before the rest of the town had access. Hand-carved wooden light switches were meant to resemble levers backstage or operating switches for a railroad. Light fixtures ranged from Gillette’s handmade craft lights to Quezal globes to two made by Tiffany & Co. Red mortar and grass floor tiles used as wall coverings are more examples of the building’s uniqueness. The house had several bathrooms, each with a modern toilet, sink and bathtub, and hot and cold water. Central heating originated from a coal-fired boiler in the basement and provided steam to fill the cast-iron radiators spread around the home.

The woodwork within the Castle is hand-hewn southern white oak. Gillette designed 47 one-of-a-kind doors within the structure, each having a unique, elaborate latch intricately carved of wood. Pieces of furniture such as the dining-room table and office chair were set on tracks to avoid damaging the floors. A built-in liquor cabinet could be locked by Gillette who then could view it from the second-floor balcony through one of three strategically placed mirrors. The home also includes a 1,500-square-foot living room, a greenhouse, several guest bedrooms, an art gallery, a library and two tower rooms.

Seventh Sisters Railroad

William Gillette had a love of trains since childhood and always wanted to drive one. In 1927, Gillette built a quarter-scale, narrow-gauge railroad around his 122-acre property. The railroad included two engines (one steam, one electric), several passenger cars, and three miles of track complete with bridges, turnarounds and a tunnel. There is a railroad station (called “Grand Central”) with a spectacular view of the Connecticut River that used to house Gillette’s railway cars, and the modern walking trails follow much of the old railroad bed. On the grounds, one also will find a covered bridge, a tunnel, several wooden bridges and Gillette’s goldfish pond.

From private estate to Gillette castle state park

William Gillette died in 1937 at the age of 83 and nine months. The estate was left to his cousin and brother-in-law. They tried to sell the Castle at auction in 1938. The winning bid was $35,000 from a real estate broker; however, the relatives rejected it. The reason is that Gillette said in his will that he did not want the property “in the possession of some blithering saphead who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.” In 1943, the State of Connecticut, with help from the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, purchased the property from Gillette’s family at a cost of $30,000. Gillette Castle State Park first opened to the public on October 7, 1944, as a museum and state park.

SOURCE: GILLETTECASTLEFRIENDS.ORG

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125 thoughts on “Gillette Castle, Connecticut”

  4. Just The News: “House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan says  that whistleblowers have come forward to disclose information about security at GOP presidential candidate and former President Trump’s July 13 campaign rally during which a gunman attempted to assassinate him.

    The whistleblowers, who shared information about security briefings from the Secret Service before the rally, told Congress that the agency and the FBI were aware that federal officials had limited resources to cover the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, because it was stretched thin.

    “Whistleblowers have disclosed to the Committee that the USSS led two briefings regarding the July 13 campaign rally on July 8, 2024, with the Western Pennsylvania Fusion Center (WPFC) and other stakeholders, to discuss the upcoming, unrelated visits by President Trump and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden,” Jordan wrote in a letter dated Monday to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

    According to Jordan, the whistleblowers told his committee that one USSS official told law enforcement that his agency had limited resources at the time because of two concurrent events, the NATO summit in Washington, D.C.

    Jordan continued by provided several questions he says Wray should be prepared to answer in his upcoming July 24 testimony before the committee. 

    You can read the letter below:” 

    2024-07-18 JDJ to FBI re assasination attempt.pdf

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  6. “Former tennis player Martina Navratilova is a lesbian, and she and her Russkie wife are avowed libturds. Both of them are among the camp of shit-for-brains that believes former President Donald Trump’s ear bandage after an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania over the weekend is ‘excessive’. 

    The severity of Trump’s injury after a would-be assassin tried to gun him down in Butler, Pa., at a rally Saturday has been questioned by some, including MSNBC host Ari Melber, who called the ear bandage he was spotted wearing in his first public appearance since the shooting a “spectacle.” Navratilova responded to an X account’s post of a picture that showed Trump wearing the ear bandage with a caption that questions its necessity. 

    Huh? That’sthe best shot (no pun intended) they can take at Trump is that his bandaid is too big and showy? How about you let somebody graze your ear with a .556 and let’s see what kinda headgear you got, ya fuckin’ moron…

    God I hate these self-important celeb jerkoffs. Juss’ sayin’…”

    Liked by 1 person

  8. “Karma, Bitches. The most powerful American institutions colluded in 2020 to steal the election for Joe Biden. Now those same interests are collaborating to get him off the 2024 ballot. Sit back and enjoy!”

    JULIE KELLY, JUL 18, 2024

    “Let’s savor just a few of the delicious ironies right now, shall we?

    • The man installed in the White House thanks to illegal voting using COVID as an excuse—now has COVID.
    • That same man who is primarily responsible for perpetuating the January 6 “insurrection” narrative is now the target of an intraparty coup.
    • The same Democratic Party deviants who colluded behind the scenes to destroy Donald Trump’s chances of reelection in 2020 are privately and publicly begging their own deviant leader not to destroy the party’s chances to keep the White House and Senate and regain the House of Representatives.
    • The same major news organizations involved in a “shadow campaign” to put Biden in the White House are conducting their own not-so-shadow campaign to take Biden off the presidential ballot.
    • A NeverTrump Republican who converted to MAGA doctrine over the past few years is Donald Trump’s running mate, representing another lethal blow to neocon establishment Republicanism that neocon establishment Republicans thought would take over the GOP after 2020.
    • Speaking of, the wife of one of NeverTrump’s most unhinged figures, one who has regularly accused Trump of being a foreign asset for the better part of a decade—was just arrested for being a foreign asset.
    • The new owner of the social media platform that in 2020 worked with the FBI and other Big Tech titans to silence criticism of early and absentee voting as well as the content of Hunter Biden’s laptop is now trolling Biden and Democrats on the site formerly known as Twitter while pledging to spend $45 million a month until Election Day to play by the Democrats’ rules related to early and absentee voting.
    • And the man nearly everyone had written off as politically dead after the events of January 6 is ascendant and headed for a landslide victory after surviving a near-death experience on July 13.

    That’s called karma, bitches.

    Drink it in, My Friends

    By the hour, it becomes increasingly unlikely Biden will survive the internal opposition building against him. Barack Obama, who some suspect has been the main driver behind the Dump Joe crusade, is amping up the pressure. “Obama’s concerns come against the backdrop of a widening anxiety gripping the Democratic Party about Biden’s prospects and their potential impact on other candidates,” the Washington Post reported this morning. “Democratic donors, activists and elected officials are increasingly turning to a small group of veteran elected leaders to help guide them out of the crisis created by Biden’s bungled June 27 debate performance.”

    The Post also claimed Biden aides have “fumed” over the former president’s role in pushing Biden out. “Biden aides say Obama could have stopped Academy Award-winning actor George Clooney, a close friend of the former president, from writing an op-ed in the New York Times that called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race.”

    Sip, sip goes the champagne.

    Obama tops a growing roster of Democrats trying to nudge Biden to, as they say, do the right thing and “save democracy” from another Trump presidency. The list includes former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Donors have stopped writing checks while longtime Democratic Party brain trusts are practically in tears on cable news imploring Uncle Joe to stumble his way into retirement.

    Several Democratic congressmen sought to delay the Democratic National Committee’s rushed nomination process, which involves a “virtual” roll call vote to seal Biden’s deal later this month rather than during the convention in Chicago beginning August 19; DNC officials relented and postponed the virtual nomination for now.

    But so far the Biden camp is refusing to back down. Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager, told the Post this morning that Biden “is not wavering on anything. The president has made his decision.” Getting His Irish Up and Staying There

    Biden himself is digging in his fall-proof heels, emboldened by Dr. Jill, the First Felony Son, and a close circle of advisors. Raging in public and private discussions, Biden insists he is entitled to retain the throne—consequences be damned. Biden had a meltdown during a Zoom call on Saturday with a caucus of moderate House Democrats when, per usual, he blamed others for his epic political collapse. At one point Biden mocked the military service of Representative Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado: “Tell me something you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son,” Biden reportedly screamed at Crow, who had raised concerns over Biden’s electability.

    Which is why there is a chance Biden will stay put. Biden, after all, is a mediocrity who things he’s a genius; an Irish blowhard who fancies himself a poet; an international grifter who considers himself a statesman; a shameless liar who pretends he’s a truth teller—what other father continually misrepresents the circumstances of his son’s death to score political points?—and a bully with a bad temper who believes his self-honed image as Lunch Bucket Joe successfully conceals the sinister nature of his true being.

    Biden lives in a fantasyland detached from reality where one made-up anecdote feeds another. He is the superhero in his own Marvel movie.

    Further, few people possess the level of contempt for Trump that Biden does. By stepping down, Biden will hand a victory to Trump, the man he has publicly envisioned beating up behind a school gym among other threats. Millions of Biden supporters will see it that way, too, a factor the Biden coup-plotters apparently overlook.

    For now, Biden is “self isolating” as his nemesis prepares to formally accept the 2024 Republican nomination for president, something Biden and his allies repeatedly promised to “stop” at all costs. One can only imagine the outbursts inside the First Family’s Rehoboth Beach home tonight.

    Meanwhile, the architects of the 2020 Steal are hunkering down, trying to figure out how to slay the monster they created knowing their options are limited and time is running out.

    And that, my friends, is worthy of a toast.

    person holding clear wine glass
    Photo by Anna Bratiychuk on Unsplash

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  9. I’ve still seen no explanation anywhere about the supposed fact that the SS already knew about this guy on Friday, the day BEFORE the rally!!! That either needs to be answered or disproven, IMO. I know it was in a timeline I posted yesterday and I try to only post from trusted sources but no way I can remember which one at the moment….but it said specifically that they were “made aware of him” on Friday.

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  11. Crazy times! This is the first time that I even looked at the subject of today’s open!!! I went in to check for Spam comments, then when I came back, I didn’t recognize the open and got all confused….until I realized what had happened. ROFL – talk about being distracted!!! I remember, tho, that I was excited to get the pics of Wheezer posted and describe what happened, so I wouldn’t forget! From there, I went to reading comments, e-mails, etc.

    Gorgeous castle/mansion/whatever they want to call it – I’d call it a castle! I’m always pleased when sites like this get saved. I was sooooo disappointed when I came back from VA for a visit once and found the old Granada theater totally gone and replaced with a fricking parking lot! Every person who grew up in this town spent time at that theater! And the fun we kids had in the balcony was legendary!

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  12. H/T M

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