Castles
Bannerman's Castle: the arsenal on the Hudson
A Scottish immigrant built a fake castle on a New York island to sell surplus weapons — and the Hudson slowly took it back.
Region · United States
Abandoned United States
Castles, Gilded Age mansions and roadside dreams. America's abandonment is often grander, stranger and more entrepreneurial than Europe's.
12Documented places
4Categories
86Minutes of reading
2026Archive updated
The entries
Every place we've documented in United States
Each entry explains the history, the present condition, and how to appreciate the place responsibly — without ever encouraging trespassing.
Castles
Boldt Castle: the monument to a love that ended
A hotel magnate built a castle shaped like a heart for his wife. When she died, he stopped — and never went back.
Mansions
Lynnewood Hall: the Gilded Age mansion that outlived its world
One hundred and ten rooms, a private art gallery, and a family fortune broken by the Titanic.
Mansions
Sauer Castle: the Italianate house on the old Santa Fe trail
A four-storey tower, five generations of one family, and a house that has stood empty for most of a lifetime.
Mansions
Halcyon Hall: the college that closed and never reopened
A grand Victorian hall at the heart of a women's college, left to the weather when the school closed.
Theme Parks
Lake Shawnee: the amusement park that never reopened
A family amusement park in the West Virginia hills, closed after a tragedy and left to the trees.
Castles
Hammond Castle: the inventor's castle by the sea
A radio pioneer with four hundred patents built himself a castle on a Cape Ann cliff — and filled it with the past.
Mansions
Villa Lewaro: the mansion a self-made millionaire built
Madam C.J. Walker built a 34-room mansion in New York — and it very nearly slipped away.
Mansions
Alder Manor: the mining fortune that became a school, then a ruin
A copper king's mansion in Yonkers became a school, then closed — and was picked clean.
Mansions
Overlook Mountain House: the hotel that burned three times
Three times built, three times lost — the roofless skeleton of a mountain hotel in the Catskills.
Theme Parks
Grossinger's Resort: the Borscht Belt hotel that inspired Dirty Dancing
For seventy years it was 'the Waldorf of the Catskills'. Then the guests stopped coming, and the buildings came down.
Villages
Centralia: the American town burning from below
A coal seam caught fire under a Pennsylvania town in 1962 and is burning still, decades later.
Keep exploring
Other regions
France
5 documented places
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3 documented places
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4 documented places
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3 documented places
Poland
1 documented place
Spain
2 documented places
United Kingdom
5 documented places
Romania
1 documented place
Ukraine
1 documented place
Japan
2 documented places
Puerto Rico
1 documented place
Canada
3 documented places
Australia
3 documented places
Norway
1 documented place