The Royal Orchard

I need to catch up a bit because some really cool things have happened this summer.

This past June, our friend Fred invited us to spend a week at his family's castle in Virginia.

Fred's great grandfather made an insane amount of money in railroads at the turn of the century. So he built a summer home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virgina. This wasn't their every day house--which was also a huge mansion in Richmond (I don't think the family still owns that house).

The great grandfather decided to tear down the existing house and build a castle. He also built several cottages in the same stone, three tennis courts, horse stables, and one of the first private swimming pools in the US.

He and his wife traveled to Europe via titanic-style cruise ships and brought back 17th century tapestries, 15th century chairs, paintings, furniture--you name it--even armor. This is Andre with an armor helmet and Fred in the main entry way.

The ceilings were ornately molded plaster in the Tudor style. A fresco of a hunting scene went around the top quarter of the walls in the dinning room, and a mural of St. George and the dragon went around the top quarter of the walls in the living room.

There was so much attention to detail that everyday I saw something new. The banisters on the stairs had hand-carved animals and a shield, each representing one of the nations involved in WWI. In addition to this unicorn, there was a bear, lion, wolf, eagle, and gargoyle. Rowan wanted to kiss the bear every time she passed it.


Many of the windows were stained glass. This is one part of a larger stained glass window. This inscription is also on stained glass at Henry Ford's Fair Lane estate. It reads "To no one is given right of delay; Noted in heaven passeth each day; Be not thou fruitless; Work while ye may; Trifling were bootless; Watch thou and pray."

On either side of the inscription was the coat of arms for the great grandfather's family and then one for the great grandmother's family.


I believe they had almost 400 acres and they grew this special apple that the Queen liked. Thus the name--Royal Orchard. They had gardens too. The girls ate raspberries off the vine.

One of the most interesting aspects of the house is all the family history that is everywhere. In most families, people have a handful of pictures and one or two stories about their ancestors. But for Fred's family, this castle has been a place to keep memories. There are volumes and volumes of photo albums. Guest books going back to the original owners. Some entries were about the country going to war (WWI) and some were even poems. They even had Christmas cards from Lady Astor who was friends with the great grandmother. The great grandmother's engraved hair brush is still on her dressing table and all of her silver with her engraved initials. The dishes they used, the piano they played, everything all still intact as if they left just yesterday.

And so to visit the castle is to take a step back in time. In the more modern styled wing that we stayed in they had pictures from family members' weddings. Many of them held at the Royal Orchard. There were group photographs, reunions and just being silly pictures. So you can see how the family line has grown and all the happy times they have had together.

Today the castle is set up as a corporation. Only direct descendants can own shares, so if you're family by marriage and get divorced then you're out. A share allows the family member to rent out the castle or the cottages and it pays to keep up the castle and grounds. Its not open to the public and the family has only allowed the public to see the castle once in 1968. Afterward some items were stolen, so now you can only go by invitation of a shareholder.

This is our group (photo by Bobby Malone).

The girls had such a great time. The first day they ran through every room. They didn't touch anything, just looked, sometimes spinning around. There were lots of things for children at the Royal Orchard. Lots of games, bicycles, a nice swing set, a pool. I think we found three different croquet sets, bocce ball sets, tennis rackets, board games. They'd have a 15th century ornately carved cabinet and you'd open it to find a monopoly game and some cards.

And they had high chairs from every era. The first night the girls sat in chairs that must have been from the 1800's. I don't know how people kept their children seated back then. The next day some of housekeepers found some high chairs that probably came from the 1950s, so they were safer and easier to use.

The castle had just as many cribs to choose from. We had our own wing of the house--it was a more modern servants wing. Every room has a name engraved on a gold plaque, and we stayed in the Grandchildren's Room. It was really two rooms separated by french doors. And the bathroom had a little built in child sized tub that was perfect for the girls. We even found two toddler big wheels for them to play on.

Andre played the bagpipes almost every night which definitely added to the overall castle-feel. He played on the top of the castle--which I think for him added to the overall bagpipe-feel. The last night everyone (well almost everyone) went up to the top of the mountain and Andre played the bagpipes. I stayed behind with the girls, but the sound carried so well we could still hear him playing.

I developed a love for playing croquet and one night we set up little lights at each wicket so we could play in the dark. Andre was winning almost every game so during some games the other players decided to change their goal from trying to win to keeping Andre from winning. He had his ball knocked down the hill so many times it looked like he was playing golf. Of course he'd still manage to make a come back.

At night everyone played various card games, board games, scrabble. We relaxed on the huge wrap around porch, talked, and laughed. It was great.