Visiting Boldt Castle on Heart Island in the St. Lawrence Seaway
Boldt Castle is located on Heart Island, which is part of the 1000 Islands area in the St. Lawrence Seaway that borders both New York and Canada. Now, this castle was the main reason for my trip up to the Canadian border (well, other than seeing my daughter.) I was looking forward to it with much anticipation. Before I go into why I was so utterly disillusioned, I’ll describe it as we went.
The only way to get to Boldt castle is by boat. Luckily there are several tour boat services that will take you there. From the water, this castle looks impressive. It is four stories high complete with spires and balconies… everything you expect a 16th Century castle to look like. There is a separate clock tower and boathouse, along with a smaller castle that was to be the children’s playhouse.
You see, George Boldt (a hotel magnate) bought Heart Island in the early 1900s I believe it was and hired all kinds of folks to build this castle for his wife as a summer home. Unfortunately, his wife died of consumption before the castle’s completion and he had everything stopped. There it sat for a number of years deteriorating and being subject to vandalism and what have you. Now this castle is owned by the 1000 Islands International Council (bought for a whopping one dollar from Boldt’s daughter) and they have been restoring it, but never plan to complete it. They feel it should stand as Boldt left it.
The admission to Boldt Castle is $5.50 and all proceeds go toward the restoration. The deal was that no money ever be made off of it. It was to be shared with the public as a non-profit entity.
There is a long dock along the backside of the castle and when you pull up you will likely see several tour boats docked there, along with various sized personal boats. We saw everything from little ski boats to 50 ft yachts the day we went.
Along this dock is the admission gate; a few small snack stands selling things like drinks, pizza, and hot dogs; and a nice sized souvenir store. I, of course, bought way too much junk! But it’s cool junk. They do accept both Canadian and American dollars, although the price tags are all in US currency.
It was storming quite badly when we arrived at Heart Island, which only added to our glee… as warped as we are. Thunder. Lightening. Cool granite Castle. Where’s Roger Corman when ya need him? So my daughter and I bought sweatshirts and raincoats with the castle emblazoned on them and up we trekked on the path to the castle itself.
The main floor is very cool. There are a few rooms with museum ropes keeping tourists off the Queen Anne furniture, a small theater where you can watch the history of Boldt Castle, and this huge gorgeous marble stairway leading up to the next level. So far so good. There are also pictures of the Boldt family and some thingies explaining the history of the place.
Going up the stairs are more rooms. It’s all about rooms, rooms, and more rooms here. Empty rooms. At this point it was still very cool, except for the sheet rock walls. I’m sorry, I wanted grand granite and brick walls… you know, like we grew up believing castles to look like. This really was like just any other ol’ modern house… elaborate, yes, but still not, you know, castle-y.
Then you get to the third floor of the castle and you notice that graffiti is becoming commonplace. Huh? Yes I know brats will be brats and they view a bare sheet rock wall as a tapestry to be covered with their name and the date like we really care… but, if the admittance fee to this very busy attraction is to be used solely to run the place and maintain it then why are there still tags on the walls going as far back as the 1980s? At this point I was becoming disgusted and annoyed. The higher we went, the worse the writing got.
Now, Boldt never finished this castle, as I said… so the upper two floors are very bare bones. The architecture is a marvel, but the maintenance is horrendous.
Under the castle is a kinda secret passage leading to the pool. These passages are all dirt and not well marked so we got lost a few times… which we, of course, liked. Heh. That part was so cool it almost redeemed the rest of it. Almost.
The patios surrounding Boldt Castle are very cool. Those are all rock with a huge stone fireplace outside. Man, I’d be happy to just rent the porch! There is an Italian Garden off to the side that wasn’t all that impressive, and a Clock Tower that you can’t go into.
Ruining the atmosphere further are numerous wood picnic tables littering the otherwise beautiful treed castle grounds. It looked like there are usually souvenir stands on the outer edge of the island too, but this day they weren’t open.
So. I’m sorry, but as awesome as Boldt Castle is from the outside, it’s bad on the inside. Is it worth the 5 bucks to get in? Well yeah it is… but is it also worth a $16 boat tour fee to get to it? No, it isn’t…although the boat tour encompasses far more than this Castle (luckily). Me, I’m glad I went, but I am very disappointed. If you only have time to visit one castle in this area, make it Singer Castle instead.
