Death Valley National Park - Scotty's Castle

Scotty's Castle is probably the strangest building you could expect to find in this part of the country. You can only visit it as part of a guided tour. It was built in the twenties by a Chicago businessman named Albert Johnson, about a decade before Death Valley was declared a national monument. At the time there were still no roads, and all building materials had to be obtained the hard way. In addition to the main house with its 50ft/15m high living-room, in which the Johnsons only stayed for one month in the year, there are stables, a guest-house, a house for the staff, and a bell-tower, all maintained in the Hispano-Moorish style. The contents of the house are original; furniture, books and paintings are those owned by the Johnsons. On the upper floor are the bedrooms and an unusual music room with a magnificent organ (1,600 pipes) which is also fitted with self-playing musical cylinders as Mrs Johnson was not a very good organist. The house was never completed, however; before the garden, swimming pool and illuminated tiled courtyard could be finished, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 came and Johnson lost almost all his money. The house went to a religious institution from whom the National Park acquired it in 1970.

"Scotty's Castle" was the unofficial name for this strange building. It comes from "Death Valley Scotty", an adventurer who was also a confidence trickster and who bore the same name as the writer Walter Scott. Although not as much as one single brick belonged to him, he told anyone who would listen that the house was his and that Johnson was only his "banker"! In time people believed him.

At the north end of the valley, the castle was built in the 1920s by Chicago millionaire, Albert Johnson, as a vacation retreat. It contains original furnishings, art and even clothing.