Bishop's Castle - Jim Bishop
Artist-built Environment | Castle | Private property - Open to the public
Jim Bishop is high, as he likes to say, high on a drug the government can't control. It's called adrenaline and after one look at Bishop Castle, you'd get no argument from me. Soaring towards the clouds for some 16 stories in all, it's made from stone; hand selected, hand carried, hand lifted and mortared into place by, you guessed it, hand. Jim Bishop's hands. He's been working the site for nearly 40 years now, that is when he isn't busy fighting with the government about giving it up. It's surrounded by National Forest land, and they've been itching to get his for some time now. But that's another story and it distracts from the sheer magnitude of what he's created.
16 stories tall? No drawings. Towers and flying buttresses and rooms of glass and stone? No engineers. A fire-breathing dragon on the roof? No plans.
No plans indeed, except for those in Jim's head. And he's happy to lean over and let you inspect his ear, and for just a moment, you have to wonder if you'll see light passing through! He says he's had a better work out than Arnold Schwarzenegger, that each rock has been moved an average of six times, and he knows it because he moved them every time!
12705 CO-165
Rye, CO
970-484-9509
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On DVD - Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, "Prowlin' the Prairie", KCPT, Kansas City Public Television, 1996-2000.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations" by Randy Mason, Michael Murphy and Don Mayberger, 2002.
"Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast Travel-o-Pedia" by Randy Mason, et. al., Kansas City Star Books, 2009.
