Quite how unlucky can one building be? Abandoned, neglected and decaying, at first sight you may think that Bannerman’s Castle is located in Europe, perhaps a Scottish remnant from the days of the lairds or a site in Ireland forsaken by retreating British aristocrats. Yet the Castle, sitting blithely upon Pollepel Island is only 50 miles north of New York City, on the Hudson River. Its history is a long and strange catalogue of disaster. Image Credit Flickr User gsz
Bizarrely, it isn’t even a castle. What you can see here are the remains of an abandoned military surplus warehouse.
The fact that it was built in the style of a castle says much for the eccentricities, not to mention wealth, of its builder, Francis Bannerman VI (
seen left).
Yet from the moment it was built the castle was, so many maintained, doomed.
What was designed to be a testament to and record of the wealth and power of a single interview was to befall no less than four disasters. In little more than a century it would fall in to complete ruin.
