{"id":14316,"date":"2015-01-21T19:36:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T19:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/independentweekender.com\/?p=14316"},"modified":"2015-01-21T19:36:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T19:36:27","slug":"dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JOSH McAuliffe<\/strong>
\n Times-Shamrock Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/a>

Ron Hall, owner of Valhalla Castle, a small replica of a Scottish castle he constructed on his property. The castle is made completely of stones he gathered on his property, and took him 27 years to complete.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ron Hall comes from hardy Scottish stock.<\/p>\n

The clan he descends from, the MacLeods, trace their lineage to the Vikings, and were among those fighting alongside William Wallace in the battles depicted in the film \u201cBravehart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a lot of clans, the MacLeods are the proud owners of a nearly 1,000-year-old castle, Dunvegan, located on the Isle of Skye.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hall has spent his life in the bucolic Susquehanna County<\/p>\n

\"PHOTOS<\/a>

PHOTOS BY JAKE DANNA STEVENS \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER New Milford resident Ron Hall is the owner of Valhalla Castle, a small replica of a medievel castle that he built on his property over a 27-year period. The castle is made from 125 tons of fieldstone, and took him 27 years to complete.<\/p><\/div>\n

hamlet of New Milford, and has never set foot in Scotland. But that didn\u2019t stop him from building his very own castle.<\/p>\n

Thirty-seven years ago, Mr. Hall got it in his head that he wanted to pay homage to his roots, and put his formidable stone-laying skills to the test, by erecting a 36-foot-tall, 33-foot-wide-by-44-foot-long castle on his 1-1\/3-acre property off state Route 848.<\/p>\n

Twenty-seven years and 125 tons of stone later, Mr. Hall had accomplished his goal.<\/p>\n

Today, his Valhalla Castle \u2014 named for the Viking version of heaven \u2014 has become, like the Iowa cornfield baseball field built for the film \u201cField of Dreams,\u201d a bona fide tourist attraction in its own, smaller-scale way.<\/p>\n

The unique backyard dwelling, located about 100 feet from the home Mr. Hall shares with his wife, Joyce, features three towers, an elevated walkway, Tudor-style designs, turrets and a courtyard. A drawbridge stretches over a waterfall-fed moat that snakes along the front of the castle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have everything you\u2019re supposed to have,\u201d said Mr. Hall, 72, who used no mortar to bind the stones, none of which were cut.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase an oft-quoted line from \u201cField of Dreams,\u201d Mr. Hall built the castle, and people come \u2014 dozens each year.<\/p>\n

Couples have had their engagement photos shot at Valhalla. It\u2019s been the site of nine weddings and several birthday parties. A Pittsburgh television show did a spot there, and it\u2019s been written about in several publications, including Pennsylvania magazine.<\/p>\n

Plenty of random folks simply show up at the Halls\u2019 door after noticing the castle from the road.
\nThere\u2019s a guest book and donation jar in one tower. And, when visitors complained there weren\u2019t any souvenirs to take home, Mr. Hall had 300 Valhalla Castle T-shirts made up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come here and want to know if I had engineering plans. All I had was a pencil sketch,\u201d said Mr. Hall as he led two visitors through the castle on a blustery, cold recent afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun,\u201d he said, \u201cto do something that no one else does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Hall\u2019s Scottish ancestors on his father\u2019s side first arrived in the American colonies during the early 1700s. Around 1810, his family settled in Susquehanna County.<\/p>\n

He grew up on his family\u2019s New Milford dairy farm. There, while other kids his age were constructing treehouses, he was busying himself building walls from piles of accumulated fieldstones.<\/p>\n

As an adult, Mr. Hall went on to work for Ansco in Binghamton, New York, while doing stone work on the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody does stone work anymore, so you can charge what you want to charge,\u201d Mr. Hall said. \u201cThe longer you do it, the better you get. I can pick up a stone and I know right where it\u2019s going to go. I never cut anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

While tracing his family\u2019s history, Mr. Hall learned that the MacLeods were castle owners. Around the same time, he had just erected a stone wall on his property.<\/p>\n

Then, it occurred to him \u2014 Why not try to build something a little more challenging than a wall? Why not, say, a castle?<\/p>\n

His father, Delbert, a professional carpenter by trade, \u201cthought it was a bad idea,\u201d Mr. Hall said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

But, as Mr. Hall pointed out, Scotsmen are often known for their stubbornness, and in 1978 he cast aside all doubt and dove headlong into the project, relying on little more than some books on castles and sketches he drew on used time cards during idle periods at work.<\/p>\n

Methodically, he began hauling fieldstone \u2014 sandstone, specifically \u2014 from the surrounding woods and other nearby properties. He\u2019d do jobs and get paid in stone. One guy gave him 13 tons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea what it was going to look like. I was just going to build one tower,\u201d Mr. Hall said.
\nAlas, once that first tower was completed, Mr. Hall felt he needed to do more. And so the project continued, and continued, and continued. He got help from his two sons, Brian and Erik, and made use of an old apple tree to lift bigger stones. The moat was entirely hand-dug.<\/p>\n

Finally, in October 2002, Mr. Hall laid the final stone. He has no clue how many there are all together. \u201cA lot of people want to know why I didn\u2019t count them. I would have never gotten done,\u201d joked Mr. Hall, who\u2019s also an avid sailor.<\/p>\n

From there, he spent the next three years building the wooden enclosures on top of the stone. The walls are made of concrete and masonite.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way to fasten wood to fieldstone. So if we ever get a tornado, we\u2019re done,\u201d Mr. Hall said.
\nThe castle, not surprisingly, gets most of its visitors during the summer and early fall. There\u2019s no heat or plumbing, so the township can\u2019t tax Mr. Hall for having an extra building. He refers to it as \u201clandscaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Scottish flag billows in the wind from atop one tower, and Mr. Hall has furnished the rooms with a variety of theme-appropriate decorations, from a wooden barrel that held MacLeod clan Scotch whiskey to a suit of armor to a throne (actually a chair from an old church) to swatches of MacLeod tartan fabric to crests of the MacLeods and other Scottish clans that Mr. Hall painted himself.<\/p>\n

The dragon sculptures on the roof are another nod to the Vikings, while the bull\u2019s head that sits above the balcony has an inscription that reads, \u201cHold Fast,\u201d the MacLeod Clan motto and, Mr. Hall said, a testament to never giving up.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the term applies perfectly to his whimsical, labor-intensive yet ultimately successful bid to bring a bit of Scottish culture to the Northeast Pennsylvania countryside.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty-five or 100 years from now, the wood will wear away, and it\u2019ll only be stone,\u201d Mr. Hall said of the castle. \u201cMaybe people will think they\u2019re ancient ruins.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Valhalla Castle, call Mr. Hall at 570-465-3218. Tours are free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JOSH McAuliffe Times-Shamrock Writer Ron Hall comes from hardy Scottish stock. The clan he descends from, the MacLeods, trace their lineage to the Vikings,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nDream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BY JOSH McAuliffe Times-Shamrock Writer Ron Hall comes from hardy Scottish stock. The clan he descends from, the MacLeods, trace their lineage to the Vikings,...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-21T19:36:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tpennysaver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tpennysaver\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/\",\"name\":\"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-21T19:36:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/75c26bc8e32869a516360463d23964c5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg\",\"width\":2000,\"height\":1333,\"caption\":\"PHOTOS BY JAKE DANNA STEVENS \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER New Milford resident Ron Hall is the owner of Valhalla Castle, a small replica of a medievel castle that he built on his property over a 27-year period. The castle is made from 125 tons of fieldstone, and took him 27 years to complete.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/\",\"name\":\"PS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/75c26bc8e32869a516360463d23964c5\",\"name\":\"tpennysaver\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d6045c51d67078fca07dea2f9a98096ff872042fa26efc301b1a93de9e6020ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d6045c51d67078fca07dea2f9a98096ff872042fa26efc301b1a93de9e6020ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"tpennysaver\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/author\/tpennysaver\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS","og_description":"BY JOSH McAuliffe Times-Shamrock Writer Ron Hall comes from hardy Scottish stock. The clan he descends from, the MacLeods, trace their lineage to the Vikings,...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/","og_site_name":"PS","article_published_time":"2015-01-21T19:36:27+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2000,"height":1333,"url":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"tpennysaver","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"tpennysaver","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/","url":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/","name":"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors - PS","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg","datePublished":"2015-01-21T19:36:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/75c26bc8e32869a516360463d23964c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/psowegomedia.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/WGSI_Valhalla_Hall2.jpg","width":2000,"height":1333,"caption":"PHOTOS BY JAKE DANNA STEVENS \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER New Milford resident Ron Hall is the owner of Valhalla Castle, a small replica of a medievel castle that he built on his property over a 27-year period. The castle is made from 125 tons of fieldstone, and took him 27 years to complete."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/2015\/01\/21\/dream-castle-new-milford-man-builds-stone-castle-in-homage-to-ancestors\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dream castle: New Milford man builds stone castle in homage to ancestors"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/","name":"PS","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/75c26bc8e32869a516360463d23964c5","name":"tpennysaver","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d6045c51d67078fca07dea2f9a98096ff872042fa26efc301b1a93de9e6020ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d6045c51d67078fca07dea2f9a98096ff872042fa26efc301b1a93de9e6020ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"tpennysaver"},"url":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/author\/tpennysaver\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}