Searles Castle (Massachusetts)

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name =Searles Castle
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location = Main St.
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
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architect = McKim, Mead, and White
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added = April 15, 1982
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refnum = 82004953
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governing_body = The Searles Castle is a romantically imagined castle-style house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Built in the 1880s, and in the French chateau-style, it has seven stories and includes a "dungeon" basement. There are 40 rooms containing over convert|60000|sqft|m2 of floor space, as well as 36 fireplaces.

It was commissioned in 1888 by Mary Hopkins, widow of railroad millionaire Mark Hopkins. She married Edward Francis Searles, who had designed the interior, while the castle was being built. Hopkins died in 1891, but Searles maintained the castle until his death in 1920. After his death, the structure was used as a private girls' school for 30 years, then passed through various owners and was used as a storage area and conference center.

Since the mid-1980s it has housed John Dewey Academy, a school for troubled teens, which put the castle on the market in 2007. The $15 million asking price, and the elaborate and romantic architecture, attracted some press coverage of the listing. [ [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_bi_ge/castle_for_sale;_ylt=Ag0gRdHYCDe3B1j54mwrK9myBhIF Mass. castle for sale for $15 million] ]

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