When I was first assigned to find Gargamel’s castle, I thought I was going to get fired (a good example, incidentally, of the very unique professional concerns us location scouts grapple with).
This was for the first Smurfs movie, and while it was unclear if an exterior was even needed, better to get ahead of the problem while there was time. So I was told to find as many castles as I could within a reasonable distance of NYC.
Castles….near New York City?? Outside of Belvedere Castle in Central Park and The Cloisters, I’d never heard of anything, and was positive I’d be coming back empty-handed. Shouldn’t we be doing this search in Europe??
As it turns out, New York has castles. Lots of castles. So many castles, in fact, that what I’m posting here is just a small selection of what exists.
In my research, I learned that many date to the early 1900s, when it was in momentarily in vogue for industrial magnates to own a castle, ideally along the Hudson River (it seems to have gone out of vogue just as quickly).
Just as I was really getting into it, I was switched to a different assignment, and never got to visit half the castles I’d discovered.
But the takeaway has stuck with me to this day: until you know for certain that something doesn’t exist, assume it does, and that you’re just not working hard enough to find it.
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