Explore a REAL Fairy Tale Castle!

the big bus parked under Old Glory our schedule is breakfast on the banks of Mobile Bay breaking up a seagull convention just for fun and huffing it up the bluff to find Fairhope Alabama [Music] a small city designed to be a utopia this used to be a wasteland at five dollars and fifty cents an acre the founders started building and instituted a single tax plan which they believed would give them a fair hope of succeeding get it it's adorable but I was disappointed to see mostly new construction a resident told me that Fairhope got popular before it put in storage building ordinances in place many have been torn down to put up McMansions who put stuff like this in their front yard really about ready to bail the Visitor Center insists I go in search of the local castles as we cross over the fairy tale bridge this part of my adventure needs to start with once upon a time Craig Turner Sheldon learned an awful lot about construction while traveling and serving in World War two and he was a gifted sculptor in 1940 he moved his family to Fairhope at the close of the war and started building a 1-bedroom home for their family of five over the years it grew and grew without ever having a blueprint Craig liked a deal and had five mouths to feed he pulled all the rock out of the bay at low tide the wood and materials he bartered everything else is made from recycled or discarded odds and ends stare closely and you'll see his collection now mortared into a time capsule today his daughters and their families live in the castles and while you are allowed to take pictures I am dying to get inside so i befriend one of the owners who sees me out there being creeping and then to my luck a bus full of senior citizens is here for a scheduled tour today I'm free riding even though it's five hundred percent obvious I'm not a member of this party Craig's daughter pagan yes her name is pagan long story moving on she's our tour guide and her bedroom while she was growing up was inside of this tower on her wedding day she tossed her bouquet from the tiny window the doors are unusually small it's because they came from ships Craig let anyone he admired carved their signature authors politicians and artists all made their mark here the second castle was built later again no blueprint again all recycled materials again all craze ingenuity acknowledge the 300-pound dragon atop the roof before making entry cross the drawbridge and into pagans husband's studio Dean Mosier paints historic murals that hang in the Smithsonian in this room war heroes from all over the world have gathered to tell their battle tales so the Dean can bring them back to life on canvas you every corner of the house adds another line to its fairy tale from the whimsical built-in cabinets to the kitchen table carved with uncomfortable little details exactly where an unmannered child might try to put their elbows on the table there are 24 steps to climb the tower and I can assure you not one stitch of this house was ever built to code [Music] team retiree and I get to the tippy-top and are rewarded with a hand-carved balcony showcasing the outrageous system of roof lines and that dragon I can't imagine what Craig Sheldon experienced during World War two but it clearly didn't stutter his ability to see beauty he transformed debris into a fairy tale once upon a time we built our houses to tell the story of our family's legacy our beliefs values and history were carved into every detail today we have HOAs and fake sliding barn doors generations from now people will never do tours of vinyl villages but they will come to see what Craig created proof that even with little money you can still create magic with just your imagination [Music] you

Channel: Casey Roman

Views: 174,086

Keywords: castle fairhope alabama, fairytale fairhope, fairhope alabama, things to do in alabama, things to see in alabama, alabama small town, babe bus, historic towns, van converison, how to convert a van, live in a van, travel in a van, solo female travel, van life, digital nomad, travel vlogger, budget travel, small town america, castles you can go inside, american castles, fairy tale homes

Id: WsnUhba6QYs

Length: 5min 52sec (352 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 24 2019