by About 30 miles northeast of Cincinnati in Loveland, Ohio, one can find a quirky Medieval-styled castle that was a labor of love for one man.
Construction began on Château Laroche – commonly known as Loveland Castle – in 1929 and continued for decades. It was the love child of Harry D. Andrews (1890-1981), who named it after Château de la Roche in southwest France, which is where he was stationed during World War I.
The castle is on the banks of the Little Miami River, from which Andrews pulled the stones he used to construct the castle.
When the supply of river stones was exhausted, he molded cement bricks to build with. He went through 2,600 sacks of cement, 54,000 five-gallon buckets of dirt, and 56,000 pails of stone to build the edifice.
The castle began as a project for his Boy Scout troop (Andrews was a troop leader), who regularly camped along the river. However, the building didn’t really kick into high gear until Andrews retired at age 55 (it’s not really clear what he retired from, other than “notary public” and “author”).
When Andrews died in 1981 – at which point he was still working on his castle – he willed the castle to his Boy Scout troop, who still run the castle today
I suppose I need not say at this point that Andrews was a life-long bachelor.
