Boldt Castle

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By peace | March 20, 2007

Boldt Castle is located on Heart Island, in the United States, and is only accessible by water. Visitors may find transportation on either a tour boat or by personal pleasure craft. A shuttle from Heart Island provides access to the Boldt Castle Yacht House.

Boldt yacht house

One of the popular attractions in the Thousand Islands is Boldt Castle, just offshore from Alexandria Bay, New York. Boldt Castle was built by George and Louise Boldt at the beginning of the 20th century. Stone by stone, Boldt Castle was built for love, but it was a love that ended tragically.

Boldt Castle is not a real castle, of course, but a fairy tale version of one. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of medieval and Victorian styles pieced together by the firm of W.D. Hewitt and G.W. Hewitt - the same architects who designed the fanciful Druim Moir castle in Philadelphia.

Boldt Castle was the creation of hotel tycoon George C. Boldt, who owned the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Around 1900 Boldt decided to build a castle as a testimonial of his love for his wife, Louise. She was only fifteen when they married, and she had worked at his side during his climb to wealth and prominence. Boldt planned to present the castle to Louise on Valentine’s Day, 1905.

Of all the grand summer homes in the Thousand Islands, Boldt Castle was to be the most magnificent. More than 300 artisans, masons, stonecutters, landscapers, and other craftsmen were hired. The Alster Tower would be a gigantic playhouse with a bolling alley, a billiard room, a library, bedrooms, and kitchen areas. Equally distinctive is a huge yacht house on a neighboring island where the Boldts had another summer home and a vast estate, incorporating farms, canals, a golf course, tennis courts, stables, and a polo field.

Power House

The Power House would hold a steam-powered generator for power and lights. The Yacht House would shelter the family houseboat and boats from visitors. But the crowning jewel would be a 120-room home modeled after a Rhineland castle and furnished with paintings, sculptures, mosaics, and tapestries from around the world. This grand design was never completed, however. Construction halted when a sudden tragedy struck the young family.

One year before Boldt castle was to be completed, Louise, aged 41, died on 7 January 1904. George Boldt who had spent more than $2.5 million on the structure, gave the order to the workers to halt all construction work. The popular story is that George halted construction because he was so grief stricken over the loss of his beloved. He never returned to the island. Vandals broke windows, covered walls with graffiti, and stripped buildings of ornamental details. Roofs leaked, timbers deteriorated, plaster peeled from walls. A fire destroyed all but the stone shell of the Powerhouse.

The Dove Cote

For almost 75 years, the castle sat abandoned, falling into disrepair. The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired Heart Island and the nearby yacht house in 1977, for one dollar, under the agreement that all revenues obtained from the castle operation would be applied towards restoration, so that the island would be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. Today, visitors can take self-guided tours of the stronghold and wander many of its 120 rooms. Recent restoration has brought to light many fine features of the original design, including the Great Hall’s grand staircase, a stained-glass dome in the upper ceiling, and marble flooring in most of the rooms. The first level has been turned into a museum, with exhibits on George and Louise, and other attractions include the Power House and Clock Tower, and the Boldt’s playhouse, where the family resided while the castle was being built.

Every summer you will see the wedding couples sail down the Saint Lawrence River, glide beneath an arched water gate modeled after Roman monuments, and say their vows on a stone bridge leading to a fanciful assembly of peaked turrets.