Divorced dad felt guilty raising son in a cramped home — so he spent 40 years building him a castle

John Lavender was a newly divorced, young father raising his 3-year-old son, Jason, all on his own. He promised his son that he would build him a castle one day, and he kept his word. On March  u/fan_tas_tic shared the story of how Highlands Castle came to be. In 1978, while sharing a townhouse in New York with five other guys, John told a 3-year-old Jason, “This is not our home... This is temporary. Someday I’ll build you a castle.”

It took him five years to find a plot of land on the mountaintop of Bolton Landing, but the castle was not built in a day. John got help from friends, hired people, a team of high school football players, and eventually his teenage son.

The story of how John found the plot of land was surprisingly simple. He saw a tiny ad in the newspaper and decided to call them through a payphone.

John began to turn his dreams into a reality. He did not hire any professional help when it came to sketching plans for the building — it was all him and his hand-drawn sketches. "I would have an oversize piece of white poster paper, and everything sketched out and all the dimensions written out," John told Business Insider about his process.

John would usually build a wall or two at a time, and then start a new drawing to work on the next day. It took him decades to build the castle, and they used over 1,000 tons of local granite. It was built next to Lake George, also known as the 'Queen of the American Lakes,' with a beautiful view of the Adirondack Mountains. 

John's son, Jason, decided to get a five-year architectural engineering degree from Penn University, where John taught his high school football team masonry so they could help him build Castle Cottage. He joked, "I promised I'd build you a castle. I didn't say you wouldn't be helping me."

In 2008, John suffered a bad fall from a ladder that broke his leg in 20 different places. He had to use a wheelchair for eight months to move around. It was during his recovery period that he decided to open the castle to the public. At the time, John was 53 years old. Two years later, John and his wife, Yvonne, decided to welcome guests to the Highlands Castle and run it themselves.

Yvonne had a background in hospitality after working at The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia and the Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing. John's ultimate dream is for his legacy to be inherited. He said, "My fantasy would be to have my son inherit the property and my grandson and granddaughter to be here after that." However, he knows that it might not be everyone's dream.

44 years later, the castle has evolved, and instead of just one, there are three castles in Bolton Landing. The biggest one is Highlands Castle, followed by The Castle Gatehouse and The Castle Cottage.

John's will and skill are impressive when compared to those of one of the oldest castles in the world, Windsor Castle. It was built by William the Conqueror around 1070, and it took him 16 years to finish building it. William the Conqueror was a king with several resources and men working for him, while John was a man with a dream of building a castle for his son.

Stories like this point to the kind of steady effort that shapes a child’s life over time. Research-backed findings show that children with actively involved fathers are 43% more likely to earn A grades and 33% less likely to repeat a class. The same body of research also links father involvement to higher confidence, better behavior, and stronger emotional development over time. 

The story of John building his son a castle has 25k upvotes on Reddit and more than 300 comments. The majority of the netizens joked about how their fathers could never build a castle. u/Unique-Farmer7244 commented, "Do you see what other fathers are doing? Not just sitting at home watching TV, they're making something of their lives. Yes, I can imagine that this will be an amusing conversation."

u/The-Matt-G expressed that they could relate to John's wish of building a castle. They wrote, "One of the things I’ve learned from the internet is that I’m not alone in wanting to build my own castle in my lifetime. One day, one day."

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