A pond built just to hold a reflection

Mark Hopkins was the treasurer and a founder of the Central Pacific Railroad. He commissioned the French chateau-style house in 1875 for his wife, Mary Sherwood Hopkins. Hopkins died in 1878, before the structure was finished, and Mary Hopkins later married Edward Francis Searles, who had designed the interior while the house was under construction. Searles was 23 years younger than Mary Hopkins and maintained the castle until his death in 1920.

The architecture features a blue dolomite exterior and wood floors of finger-locked construction, which uses no nails. In the atrium, all pillars were hollowed out except for one. A secret stairway connects Mary Hopkins' second-floor bedroom to Edward Searles' third-floor bedroom. The property includes 40 rooms and 54,246 square feet of floor space, along with 36 fireplaces.

The castle includes a pond built as a cross specifically to reflect the house for tea-time views. Other features include a Louis XV Versailles Room imported from Venice and a built-in walk-in cooler, one of the first of its kind. After Searles died, the castle served as a private girls' school for 30 years, followed by use as a training center and a school for intellectually gifted teens.

Today, the castle was sold in 2021. It remains a notable filming location, having hosted the movies Before and After, featuring Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep, and Like Lambs.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons