Gillette's Castle . . . Part 2

I managed to get myself down to Gillette's Castle again last week to tour the inside of the castle.  I believe I did it once when I was young but don't really remember it.  It is such a beautiful place and William Gillette was just brilliant!! The carvings and details and ingenuity throughout the place was just amazing!! It's taken me quite a while to go through all the pictures I took and narrow it down to a few (and to be honest there are still quite a few, but I did try!!)

 There are guides throughout the house pointing out little details and telling you about the house and Mr. Gillette. They said that all the furnishings came with the house and belonged to Mr. Gillette.  Yup, from the little cat figurines and ceramic frogs to the books in the library, they were all his.

 Notice anything about the desk chair? He put the chair and some of the other furniture, like the dining room table, on tracks so they could slide in and out without scuffing the floors.  And I've decided I watch the History Channel too much because once I saw that fan on the desk all I could think of was the pickers!!

Most everything in the house was hand made and designed by Mr. Gillette, the handles on the doors were very intricate and all unique, and the systems he had on the windows, though simple when you really think about it, just amazed me, I think it was one of my favorite parts of the whole place.

There are lots of documents up on the third floor, some are blue prints from when he was designing different parts of the house, some are letters. There's one letter that I thought was funny, it was from Mr. Gillette to his brother when he was around 11 years old, it just made me smile :)

Of course the view from the third floor was just amazing!! Wish the terrace on the roof was open to the public that would be fantastic!!

When I was done touring the house I had to take a walk down to the river and put my feet in the sand!! I really don't know where the summer went, but I started my summer with my feet in the sand here and I got to finish it the same way!! The castle closes again Columbus Day weekend, but they told me it opens in December all decorated for Christmas.  I wanted to shoot it last winter in the snow, but we didn't get much, maybe I'll have to try when it's decked out for the holidays instead :)

Cheers