By Barry Owens
Stone by heavy stone, Sharon Lawrence built the castle tower that reaches for the treetops in the backyard of her home at the south end of Vassar Street in College Hill. She built it by herself mostly, but she did not build it for herself.
“I built it to share,” she said one afternoon last month as she prepared for visitors. “It would defeat all purpose if I said ‘Don’t even think about coming in here.’”
So, the curious have always been welcome. Local children have been free to explore as long as a parent was nearby. Teenagers have found their way inside to lounge and loiter and are given a pass by Lawrence so long as no damage is done. And this month, for the first time, Lawrence is throwing open the castle doors to officially welcome the entire village. From 5-9 p.m. Dec. 4, she will host an open house in the castle at 436 S. Vassar St.
“It is as done as it is ever going to be,” she said of the castle, which she first began working on 19 years ago.
Lawrence was inspired to create the tower during a trip to the German countryside. The foundation and masonry were professionally done, work which Lawrence paid for in part by saving “quarters and dimes, just about everything I could get, for a year.” Each piece of limestone, which makes up the tower’s facing, was hand picked and hauled home by Lawrence.
“People gave me stone, I would run onto stone, I was always looking out for stone,” she said.
The interior is three levels, with a ground floor, a loft above, and a patio-like open space in the turret. It is furnished with medieval-looking pieces, including a suit of armor.
“People ask if I have a dungeon,” Lawrence said. She does not, but certainly seems capable of creating the addition.
“She’s no bigger than a bar of soap,” says her friend Jackie Pursley, “but I’ve watched her wrestle 90 pound bags of cement around.”
Pursley, who lives nearby on Belmont Street, is enchanted with the castle, and the story of how Lawrence came to build it. He is writing a book on the subject.
“I don’t think Sharon’s genius so much rests with what she knows, but what she suspects,” Pursley said, “and she suspected that she could do this.”
Lawrence put it this way: “I didn’t know poo, except that I was going to do it.”
Now that she has done it, she has set her sights on completing the attached chapel, growing new grass on the trodden ground, and welcoming guests.
On this afternoon an entourage, which included residents of College Hill and far beyond, arrived for an unannounced visit. Lawrence seemed happy to show them around.
“Whoa,” said young Isaac Frolich-Brown of Udall as he passed through the doors.
“It seems so medieval,” said College Hill resident Jenny Funke. “But you look over and see Kellogg.”
After a few minutes spent in the turret, Paula Currey of Rose Hill turned to her husband.
“Can I have a castle?” she said.
