M - Mystery Castle

Mystery Castle is located in the foothills of South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Az. It was built by a man by the name of Boyce Luther Guller in the 1930's for his daughter Mary Lou Gulley. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and came here to Arizona where he lived until he died in 1945. It was at that time that Mary Lou and her mother were notified they had inherited this "castle".

Said to be held together by a combination of mortar, cement, calcium  and goat milk this sprawling 18 room, three story building is built from a wide range of materials that were easily available to Guller. Such things as stone, adobe, automobile parts, salvaged rail tracks, refrigerator parts and telephone poles to name a view.
Mary Lou and her mother moved in and began giving tours of the unique dwelling and in fact Mary Lou did so until her death in 2010.

When I visited the castle many years ago she was not there but I think it would have been wonderful to have her rendition of the place. The one thing that I thought was ingenious is that the heavy iron bed was on railway tracks and could be pushed close to the window in the summer and away from the window in the winter. Electricity and plumbing were not added until 1992 if you can imagine in our Arizona heat.

How about this window?

Or maybe you would prefer this one?

Or better yet this one....glass refrigerator parts were used to make this one.

He built a stone frame around the view of  Phoenix and didn't forget the dog either...

with this little tepee dog house.

Ingenious yes but can you imagine the amount of work all this rock work took.
Guller made this house out of nothing. Literally what he found in the dessert an what he was able to purchase amazingly cheap from junk dealers. But out of it, he built a monument of love for his daughter.

Even though the daughter is deceased as of this date the castle is still open for tours from Oct. to May and Thurs. - Sun.