Richthofen Castle

There’s nothing like a castle to excite the imagination. While living in Los Angeles, I remember driving along the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu and looking for the Castle Kashan.  Unfortunately it burned down during one of the fires Southern California frequently has and wasn’t rebuilt.  And of course growing up in Southern California you can’t forget Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland. So I love castles, and I was excited to do a site inspection of Richthofen Castle for Historic Denver.

Baron von Richthofen

Walter Freiherr von Richthofen was born in Germany on January 30, 1850, at Kreisewitz, Silesia. Walter attended cadet school from his early teens and served during the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. A transatlantic visit in 1869 convinced him that America held great opportunity. Following the war, Walter returned to America, survived the Great Chicago Fire and made his way to Denver. Casting about for a way to make a living, Richthofen taught German, French and Latin. Discovering that Italian was also in demand, he headed for the Riviera to study it. There he met and married Englishwoman Jane Oakley; Walter was 28 and she was 34. Jane returned with him to Denver, and the couple had two daughters–Margarethe (called Daisy in America) in 1878 and Charlotte in 1882.  Walter took Jane back to Germany for a visit with the extended Richthofen clan. She loved Germany. Walter preferred Denver. The couple separated. English-born Jane remained in Germany to raise their children as members of the German nobility, while Walter returned to Denver alone. He soon met another woman, Louise Ferguson Davies, whom he courted while divorcing Jane.

Even in the 1940’s, the area around the castle was sparsley populated.

In 1881, he started the Downtown Denver Real Estate Company and was the first person to develop east of Denver.  In 1885 he wrote  “Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America”. His book proclaimed that the Colorado front-range area was “the largest and richest grass and pasture region in the world, and it will probably soon become the most important beef-producing country of the globe.” His prediction proved prescient, although he himself failed in the cattle industry along with many other ranchers, primarily due to the brutal winter of 1886 that decimated the range-feed cattle industry.  Fortunately his book sold well, and he built his Colorado castle as a show home for his new development fifteen miles east of Denver-—Montclair.

The Castle soon after completion.

He began construction on his castle in 1883 on a 320-acre lot in Montclair. Designed after the Richthofen castle in Germany, it was completed in 1887 and was meant to be the show home for his suburban town of Montclair, which he founded in 1885. Referred to within the family as Louiseburgh, after his second wife, the manor house remains generally known as Richthofen Castle. The gray stone mansion featured towers, a quaint stone bridge over a moat and a landscaped garden stocked with deer, antelope and wild canaries. The superb timing of his real estate enterprises in East Denver and Montclair allowed Richthofen to keep afloat and bask in some luxury despite the hit he took when his cattle business failed. Walter and Louise moved into the castle in 1887 and lived there for all of three years.

 

The 21-room residence was originally fortress-like in style, but was remodeled in 1910 by Edwin Hendrie who had purchased it as his home. The additions and modifications were designed by Maurice Biscoe. The south wing was designed by Jules J.B. Benedict in 1924 and resulted in an English Tudor appearance.

The story goes that the Baroness didn’t care for the look of the prairie around the castle, so the Baron had many trees planted on and around the estate.

 

The Castle today is difficult to see through all the overgrown foliage.

In 1888, Baron von Richthofen built the Molkery (from Molkerei, German for “dairy”), on East 12th Avenue between Oneida and Newport Streets, a tuberculosis sanitarium. Tuberculosis victims were promised a cure by drinking fresh milk from cows stabled below, then soak up the sun on open porches. The porches and dining area were built directly above the stables so guests could inhale the effluvia–supposedly a natural curative–through grates. When a scientific antidote was developed, quack cures fell by the wayside and the Molkery flopped. The building was converted into an insane asylum. Today the structure serves as the Montclair community center.

In 1891 the baron and his wife sold the castle and embarked on a tour of California, Mexico, Alaska and Europe, finally settling in London. The Panic of 1893 knocked the bottom out of the Denver real estate market. The Richthofens returned to Denver and bought the castle back. As Walter worked to open an art gallery and a new health spa and hotel, he was reduced to selling books from the tailgate of a wagon to cover day-to-day expenses.

Interior dining room, circa 1948.

The baron died of shock after an operation on May 8 at age 48. Louise spent the rest of her life living in hotels; she sold the castle during the next downturn in 1903. She lived until 1934, though during World War I she understandably dropped the “Baroness von” and became simply “Mrs. Richthofen.”

The parquet-floored music room that seats 150, circa 1948.

The Richthofen Castle is located at 7020 E. 12th Avenue, Denver  (NW of Lowry between Monaco and Quebec).

August 2, 2010 Update: This from the August 1, 2010 issue of the Denver Post:

“When home is a castle, it can grow too big
Like many couples of a certain age, auctioneer Jerry Priddy and his wife, Esther, are ready to downsize from their 15,000-square-foot home.

But this isn’t just any house. Rather it’s the Richthofen Castle, a palatial pad built by the Red Baron’s uncle, Walter von Richthofen, in the heart of the Montclair neighborhood on East 12th Avenue between 1878 and 1887.

Asking price? $3.9 million, but if you want the Priddys to throw in some of the furnishings or historical memorabilia, add another $2 million to the price tag.

The Priddys own what’s described as the largest known collection of memorabilia belonging to Manfred von Richthofen, known as the     Red Baron.

“We’re selling it because it would be a terrible burden to our children,” said Esther, 80. “We’ve had so many people interested in the place.”

They’ve had a nibble from a potential buyer, but unless it goes under contract, the castle remains on the market where it was in February 2006, when the asking price was $3.5 million. The Priddys, who own Estate Auctions on East Evans Avenue, bought the place in 1984 when the walls were caving in and the fixtures had been stripped by vandals.

The castle’s 50-foot tower displays the Richthofen coat of arms. On a western corner of the property is a red sandstone sculpture of Frederick Barbarossa, a German medieval emperor, wearing a headdress made of a lion’s head.

The property is being sold by Steven Koundourakis, owner of Richthofen Realty and the Priddys’ son-in-law. Showings are by appointment only to pre-qualified buyers.”

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