Colorado has a unique international castle company. In the tiny town of Grand County outside Aspen, Buck Hoban and his a younger couple spent 50 years building a series of exquisite buildings. First they built an entryway, and then one cottage and a barn, then a house on a hill, and a deck. And so, they built. The castle is built into steep, snowy slopes and overlooks a valley. The walls are stone, and the windows have wide-open views of the peaks. Buck opened his company to the public. Along with showing it off, he rents it out to people who want to make it their own, for a few bucks.
Now that he’s 82, something needs to happen. Buck knows he has three children — Matthew, 80, who lives in Aspen, Jeanette, 80, in Colorado Springs, and Robin, 68, in Pennsylvania — and he will not live to see their children.
So he’s thinking of selling. But he says, in his heart, he’s not ready to stop building. So he’s going to build the castle again. If he does, it will be the most popular castle in America — and people will be lining up.
What it will look like. No one knows, and that’s the point.