Day 3:  9/9/14 Old Mistik Village & Gillette Castle.

We arrived at Old Mistik Village (that’s not a typo… they spelled it different to confuse me) just before noon.  There are over 50 shops with just about everything imaginable.  There are Tee shirt shops, a Christmas shop, one shop sold extra virgin olive oil, several eateries, a cinema, a bank, a real estate agent and an attorney just to mention a few.   

There were lots of friendly ducks.

This in not a zoomed picture.

We had coffee and pastry at the Bleu Squid. 

Then we sat down with the map and decided where to go next.  While we thought we would be heading toward Cape Cod, we had a change in plans.  If we run up toward Hartford there are two things that sound interesting.  First the William Gillette Castle for this afternoon and the Mark Twain’s house tomorrow.

If you are not familiar with William Gillette (1853-1937) you will find him to be an interesting character.  He wanted to be an actor since a child and even built his own puppet show in his father’s carriage house. 

As seen from the driveway

The Castle took five years to build (1914-1919), has 24 rooms, 14,000 square feet of living space, and cost $1.1M ($13M in today's money).  Gillette never called it a castle but was known to refer to it as a pile of rocks.  He built it for a retirement home.                 

He called it Seventh Sister, because it was located at the southernmost of a chain of hills known as the Seven Sisters. After Gillette died, with no wife or children, his will precluded the possession of his castle not by any "blithering sap-head who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded". Connecticut's government took over the property in 1943, renaming the home as Gillette's Castle and the estate as Gillette Castle State Park. The estate was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

He was quite the prankster.  He could stand on a balcony overlooking the entrance to the living room and see the reflection of a guest in the mirrors above the French doors.  If he did not wish to entertain the guest he could go through a door in his study and down a stairway behind them and slip outside!

The Cats' table.  They could play with the
dangling pieces of wood attached by cords.
On average there were 13-15 cats in the house. 

Grand Central Station for the
Seventh Sister Railroad

The hidden stairway came down behind the stone wall at
the entrance.  He could stand at the balcony and see the reflection
in the mirror (just below the window) in the upper left of the picture.

The window at the top was his secret room.
It had a view of the river on three sides.  He
 climbed 5 flight of stairs to reach it.

The counter on the liquor cabinet
lifted up to close.  It had a secret
lock that could only be opened with
a metal shiv.  With the cabinet
closed he would politely excuse himself and
invite his guest to help themselves.
Then he would watch from the balcony
as the desperately tried to open the cabinet!

Library in his office.  One of many
through out the house. 

Gillette's study.  The door to the hidden stairway is just out
of sight on the left wall.  You can only see the latch in this view.
Notice the chair is on rails and the phone is on a pivot.

Every one of the 44 hand carved doors
is different.  each has an elaborate latch.
Even the light switches look like railroad
levers.

While smaller than some of the other
bedrooms in the house, Gillette's room had
a walk-in closet behind the wall on left.

Most of the wall are covered
in a woven grass.  Gillette's
room is the only one with painting
on the wall.  Notice the apparatus
to move the lamp for reading in bed. 

Third floor reading room

Window position latch and lock.

In 1882 Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit.

She died in 1888 from peritonitis,

caused by a ruptured appendix.

He never remarried.

He is best known for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle contacted Gillette about playing Holmes on stage. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, Gillette telegraphed Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" Doyle responded: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him.

He took some artistic license with the part and is responsible for the popular Sherlock image we know today.  It was Gillette who gave Holmes the iconic deerstalker hat, the bent briar pipe, and the magnifying glass.  He also coined the phrase “Elementary my dear Watson”. None of these are in Doyle's original writings.  Gillette played the part of Holmes more than 1,300 times throughout the world.

Gillette's Seventh Sister Railroad Steam Engine.

Gillette loved trains and built a three mile long ¼ scale railroad on his 184 acre property.  He had one electric powered and one steam engine.

Evening found us at the Wolf's Den Family Campground in East Haddem, CT.  Supper was a venison tenderloin that our son marinated in his secret mix of herbs and spices...YUM!

Olde Misitk Village:   41° 22’25.80” N        71°57’27.32” W

Gillette Castle State Park:  41° 25’19 29.83” N       72°25’44.78’ W

Wolfs Den Family Campgrounds:  41 27’02.41N   72 25’41.97”W