Boldt Castle: The Story of an Unfinished Dream.

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

Boldt Castle is a crown jewel of the Gilded Age, a period of conspicuous consumption and architectural exuberance, which flourished between the end of the American Civil War in 1864 and the beginning of the Great War in 1914. Political and economic integration opened access to virgin resources which, in an age of virtually unrestrained capitalism, generated individual fortunes of prodigious size. These fortunes, subject neither to income nor capital gains taxes, fuelled monumental spending on the “cottages” of Millionaires’ Row, Newport, Rhode Island, and Boldt’s doomed Bavarian fantasy opposite the town of Alexandria Bay, on Heart Island, one of the Thousand Islands strewn along the course of the St. Lawrence River between its source at the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the towns of Brockville, Ontario, and Morristown, New York. Romance and mystery lurk at the heart of this tale. George Boldt must qualify as the model for Horatio Alger’s stock rags to riches hero: an immigrant, assiduous, shrewd but honest, who marries the boss’s daughter, who is herself an immensely talented helpmate. Together they rise in the hotel and hospitality business in Philadelphia and New York. She is the love of his life, and the castle on Heart Island is his testament to that love. Suddenly, after the basic structure is erected, but before it is finished either outside or in, she dies. Boldt instantly issues an order to suspend construction, never lifts it, and the granite piles are all but abandoned to the elements from January 5, 1904, until the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority takes possession in 1977. Its decision to push beyond stabilization to completion raises a storm of controversy between the historical puritans and the practical promoters.

Two books on the subject warrant the reader’s time. The most intriguing, written in a style that mimics the fantasy, mystery, and controversy inherent in the subject, is Paul Malo’s Boldt Castle: In Search of the Lost Story. It, however, should be taken in hand only after reading Anthony Mollica’s account. It is concise, accurate, well written, and superbly illustrated by George Fischer’s inspired photographs.