Castle in New York was never completed

Dundas Castle - Camp Eureka, Roscoe New York

Date added: May 15, 2023 Categories: New York House Mansion

Originally named Craig-E-Clair, the castle was built by Ralph W. Dundas, a socially prominent New Yorker, in a remote area in the town of Rockland, in northern Sullivan County, and the neighboring town of Colchester, in southern Delaware County. In 1907, Dundas purchased a 964-acre parcel formerly used as a fishing retreat and began transforming an existing "Swiss" style country house into a large, rambling estate complex. Its design is believed to have been inspired by late nineteenth-century interpretations of medieval European castles constructed in Scotland in the previous quarter century. The distinctive character of the castle is established by the use of plan elements and forms derived from Victorianized medieval castles and the interplay of features and materials imported and salvaged from Europe with those obtained at the site. The castle is distinguished by stone construction, an informal courtyard plan, the use of medieval features such as a curtain wall, bailey, and barbican, and decorative features such as steeply pitched gable, conical and parapeted roofs, towers and dormers, and lancet-arched windows. Actual construction appears to have begun just before World War I (c1915-17) and ceased in 1924, several years after Dundas's death in 1921.

The town of Rockland, within which the bulk of the property lies, was taken from the town of Neversink in 1810; however, because the area remained one of the last bastions of Native American occupation in Sullivan County as late as the 1870s, it was largely unsettled by European-Americans prior to 1890. Many of the early settlers came from Westfield, Massachusetts, and Rockland was initially called Westfield Flats. Apart from its relatively late period of settlement, the region's development was typical of the remote mountainous areas of the state. Lumbering and tanning, the earliest industries, were succeeded by subsistence agriculture utilizing the cleared land. After the Civil War, this marginal economic base declined with the demise of the forest and other water-powered industries, as well as by the outward migration of agriculture to more fertile land out west. The region's economy and land use began to change with the arrival of the railroad in 1872. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the region's underdeveloped character and abundance of natural features became attractive to urban outsiders seeking seasonal recreation and retreat from American cities. This region of northern Sullivan County became especially popular for recreational fishing and was widely known for the numerous fishing clubs that were established within a remote, wilderness setting. Located at the northern tip of the Catskills resort region, this area never saw the influx of the large, middle-class resort populations that contributed to the development of the distinctive character of the southeastern portion of the county in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Dundas Castle property was developed into a rural retreat between 1887 and 1900. The property appears to have been in agricultural use prior to this period; however, the chain of title is unclear. One source indicates that it was a farm owned by a Joseph Cammer. According to this account, all of the Cammer farm (with the exception of three acres) was purchased in 1887 by a B. L. Gilbert. This transfer is confirmed in a local newspaper clipping from 1919, which identified Gilbert as a New York architect and observed: "This was practically the first great change along the Beaverkill, the others coming in rapid succession, the Brooklyn Fly Fishers Club, of Brooklyn, buying part of the B.F.Hardenbergh farm, and later Mr. George B. Essen taking over the Willis Butler place."

The size of the Cammer farm is not recorded, but the Cammer parcel appears to have been subsequently enlarged by one or more additional purchases. The 1919 article indicates that it was added to "so that today it includes several farms." Another local history suggests that land owned by a family named Butler, with three hundred acres subdivided into three farms and the remaining seven hundred acres in forest and leased to the "Leighton Chemical Company" for timbering rights, was added to the property around the turn of the century.

One source credits Bradford L. Gilbert, who appears to have purchased the property around 1887, with transforming the farm into an estate. Gilbert's flourishing architectural practice would have supported such a venture." Several sources, however, credit Maurice Sternbach or Morris Sternback with the initial development of the property into an estate. Sternbach is described variously as an "importer from New York City" or a silk manufacturer. According to one account, Sternbach arrived in Roscoe one summer in the early 1900s and discreetly but methodically explored the outlying areas in search of real estate before returning to New York in September. Within a year and a half, he had purchased nearly one-thousand acres at Craig-e-Claire, and a few months later he began to redevelop the site:

"...Mr. Sternbach appeared in Roscoe and hired a goodly force of local men to tear down three three farm houses, with barns and outhouses [and]....after all the farm buildings had been torn down, board by board, nails removed and the lumber stacked, a beautiful Swiss chalet type home was built, about a half mile distant from the Beaverkill Road...Large orchards of pear and apple trees were planted and a horse barn was erected for ten or twelve of the finest riding horses ever seen in that section. A rather large tenant house was erected ...."

Photographs later taken during the construction of the castle suggest that the summer home built for Sternbach was massed with at least one cylindrical turret, clad in dark-colored shingles and contained novelty sash.

Sternbach held the property until 1907, when he sold it to Ralph W. Dundas.

Ralph W. Dundas (1871-1921) was born Ralph Wurts-Dundas in Brussels, Belgium of American parents with family connections in Philadelphia and New York. Dundas had a connection to the Catskills region and was an heir to several fortunes. His paternal grandfather, William Wurts (1788-1858), was a Philadelphia merchant and one of three brothers who built and promoted the Delaware & Hudson Canal in the 1820s to convey anthracite from Carbondale, Pennsylvania to the Hudson at Kingston. William Wurts later established a mercantile house in New York before retiring to Trenton. William Wilberforce Wurts (1841-1897), the father of Ralph Dundas, held commissions in the Philadelphia City Cavalry and 7^th New York Cavalry during the Civil War. In 1868, he married Anna Maria Dundas Lippincott (d.1897) of Philadelphia, a granddaughter of Joshua Lippincott (1813-1886), one of Philadelphia's most successful publishers. Soon after the wedding, Wurts legally changed his surname to Wurts-Dundas in Philadelphia. By the time of his son's birth, the senior Wurts-Dundas was living abroad. He served as attache of the United States Legations at Rome under Rufus King and at Paris under Elihu B. Washburne and John A. Dix, and he remained in Europe until his death in Nice. Ralph Wurts-Dundas appears to have been the only child to survive to maturity. By the time of his death, he had dropped his father's hyphenated surname in favor of the more socially prominent maternal Dundas name. His maternal great-great-grandfather, James Dundas (1786-1865), had been a major figure in legal, commercial and financial circles in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia, especially in the development of the coal industry. James Dundas, who was an amateur architect, art collector and prominent horticulturist known for his conservatory, also fell heir to the ancestral manor estate in Scotland in 1828, upon the death of a distant cousin, whom Ralph Dundas appears to have been named after.

Ralph W. Dundas spent the first seventeen years of his life in Europe, where he was educated at Eton and Oxford. His activities following his return to the United States are not well documented. He received a law degree from Harvard but never appears to have practiced. He was reported to be a sportsman and well-traveled. He apparently maintained residences in Philadelphia, where he was a member of a Masonic lodge, and New York. At some point he married Josephine Harmer of Philadelphia, and they had one daughter, Muriel Wurts-Dundas. He had another summer home, Bass Rocks, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he died.

Around 1926, five years after the death of Ralph Dundas, the castle was profiled in an article in the New York Times:

Dundas Castle, an imposing stone fortress on the edge of a forest five miles from Roscoe in the lower Catskills, known as Craig-e-clare, is one of the most intriguing points of interest in Sullivan County. Virtually completed five years ago, at a cost of more than a million dollars, the huge structure has never been occupied....German police dogs give warning of intruders, and residents of the region, who are few, admit they know little regarding this mansion or its owner. Dundas Castle, they say....was built by Ralph Dundas, who died five years ago, just before the finishing touches were added. Thousands of dollars worth of rare oriental rugs, tapestries, and hangings were stored away after his death, never having been unrolled. A few were shipped away to storage, but the most of the rich hangings, it is said, remain.... Dundas and his wife occupied a wing of the house, and about 30 Finnish workmen were employed shortly before the World war to build a stone wall around the wooden structure erected by the former owner. Then the castle was started. If a completed part failed to please the owner, he ordered it torn down and reconstructed. Plans were frequently altered or completely changed. More than eight years were required in building the castle. Huge iron and stone gates were imported from an old French chateau and set up. The building is in the form of a triangle with a large enclosed courtyard in front. There are nearly 40 rooms, each with modern facilities. The establishment has its own electric lighting plant and three separate heating plants, each working individually. Winding marble stairs connect all the floors. The walls of the structure are three feet thick and a special slate an inch and a half thick covers the roof and turrets. Mr. Dundas died in 1921, leaving the castle to his daughter, Mrs. Muriel Wurts of New York, who has visited the estate once or twice, but has never occupied the castle, usually spending her brief visits in a farmhouse nearby.

The construction history of the castle is not well documented. Photographs in an album once belonging to James Keegan, an individual who worked on the project, indicate that the castle encapsulated part, if not all of an earlier frame structure. The earlier building was clad in shingles; it had at least one turret of similar dimension to the existing pair flanking the entrance, and it had leaded and novelty-style sash. Notes on the photographs indicate that the roofing slate was imported from England, the rounded stones taken from the streambed of the Beaverkill, and interior "marble" mantels and flooring (actually limestone) imported from Italy. News stories reported that the workforce assembled to build the castle was imported as well. A local paper suggested Scandinavia, and the New York Times noted that "...about 30 Finnish workmen were employed shortly before World War I to build a stone wall around the structure erected by a former owner."

Ralph Dundas did break with local tradition by bringing in labor from the outside; however, it appears that they were not imported for this project alone. According to one account, he had difficulty finding local Catskill workers willing to work on his terms. "To solve the problem, he imported a number of workmen from his summer home, Gloucester, Mass. These men lived in a tent colony on the mountainside-their lives absolutely undisturbed by the native. The newcomers were 'foreigners,' and being such, were shunned." There is evidence that the construction of the castle overlapped that of the construction of Bass Rocks, the home in Gloucester. This speculation is based on a photograph of a wall and archway built of dressed, quarry-faced stone under construction that seems to have been in the Keagan album.

Ralph Dundas died on 16 October 1921, before the castle was completed. Upon the death of his wife the following year, their only daughter, Muriel, who was then a juvenile, inherited the property. She did not use it during her ownership apart from an occasional visit. Between 1913 and 1922, a part of the Dundas property known as Beaverkill Lodge Farm and perhaps the entire estate was managed by B.C. Hardenberg, who appears to have been a local. Upon his resignation, the management was turned over to Mr. and Mrs. James Farley, who were from Gloucester. The Farleys occupied the caretaker's section of the castle for about twenty-five years. James Farley, who had been Dundas's chauffeur, reportedly made improvements to the carriage road through the property around 1926.

On 2 May 1949, the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Masonic Order, a membership organization of African-American masons headquartered in Manhattan, purchased the property from Muriel Wurts-Dundas Boone for $47,5000. The purchase was made through Prince Hall Temple Associates, a corporation formed to operate the property. The Prince Hall Mason date to 1775, when fourteen black masons were accepted into a Masonic lodge within the British military forces in Boston. In 1784, the Prince Hall group was granted its own charter and today there are more than 4,500 lodges worldwide, including more than 300,000 members. Ironically, although Freemasonry is an organization dedicated to brotherhood, masonry in the United States has been clouded by racial segregation throughout its history. During the 1960s, many leaders of the segregation movement, including George Wallace and Orval Faubus, were active masons. Even today, most white and black masons are restricted from visiting each others' lodges and there are extremely few integrated lodges. The Prince Halls Masons have boasted many prominent American members, including Eubie Blake, Count Basie, Medger Evers, Alex Haley, Lionel Hampton, Thurgood Marshall, Booker T. Washington, Andrew Young and Carl Stokes among many others. When the Manhattan lodge purchased Dundas Castle in the late 1940s, its members included U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and Arthur T. Giddings, Sr., a civil engineer for the city of Yonkers, who served as the first president of the corporation.

The initial plan for the property was to establish a Masonic home for aged and indigent members. This did not come to fruition and the property was used as a rural vacation retreat for a number of years. The barn at the farm complex was converted to a recreation center, with a soda fountain and a stage. In 1951, the old farmhouse was remodeled for an administration center, containing sleeping quarters upstairs and a dining room downstairs. During this time, the castle was used as a hunting and fishing resort from May to September and during the fall hunting season. By 1964, the corporation had constructed the swimming pool, dining pavilion and many new buildings on the property. Soon after, the corporation established Camp Eureka, a summer home for youth, which remains the property's primary use today.

Building Description

Dundas Castle, also Craig-E-Clair (or Craigie Clair), is the former estate of Ralph Wurts-Dundas. The property (which has been known as Camp Eureka since the 1960s), is situated in a remote place, identified as Crag-E-Clair on some twentieth-century maps. The nominated property includes land in the town of Rockland in the northwestern corner of Sullivan County and the town of Colchester in southern Delaware County. Craig-E-Clair is located in the largely undeveloped valley of the Beaverkill, several miles northwest of the small village of Roscoe. It is approached from Roscoe, following the course of the river along the scenic, winding Berry Brook Road. Roscoe has long been regarded as the center of fly fishing in the Catskills due to its location at the confluence of the Willowemoc and Beaverkill, two renowned trout fishing streams. The nominated property is a 964-acre parcel that straddles the county line. The south boundary is the Beaverkill Creek and the north; east and west boundaries abut private lands. The nomination boundary was drawn to include the land historically associated with the estate. This corresponds to the approximately one thousand acres consolidated as an estate in the late nineteenth century; this was the parcel Dundas purchased in 1907, and it is the acreage associated with the property today. The property includes a group of buildings in the southeast portion of the parcel and a large wilderness component, which represents the land use of the property during the entire estate period. From the entrance, the property's terrain slopes upward toward the northerly edge, gently at the western edge and more steeply to the east. The property is covered with large areas of second-growth deciduous and coniferous forest interspersed with clearings. Most clearings are remnants of the site's previous agricultural use during the nineteenth century. Limited areas of the grounds near the castle and the entrance gate are more formally landscaped. The castle group, which is the main feature of the property, includes the main house, its bailey, "curtain wall" and barbican, and a small human-made pond. The unfinished, castellated main house, which completely incorporates an earlier frame summer house, represents the second and penultimate episode in the property's development. It occupies an imposing site on a flat area atop a natural outcrop near the southeasterly corner of the property. It is visible, although not accessible, from Berry Brook Road. The associated main entrance gate, which is contemporary with the castle, is situated along Berry Brook Road. Immediately within the property, on axis with the gates, is a formal allee of conifers delineating a short, unused section of the castle's original approach drive. This main approach drive winds informally through the estate, connecting the gate area with the castle. This was the road used during the castle period, and apart from the abandoned allee stretch, remains in active use. The current main entrance to the property is now located immediately southwest of the entrance gate, where a short unpaved drive skirts the allee to the west before joining the earlier drive.

In addition to the castle group, the property includes three other groups of resources reached by branches off the main access drive. The farm group, which is situated at the northernmost extremity of the developed portion of the property, is a cluster of buildings that appear to predate the castle. The farm is reached by a farm road that branches from the access drive and crosses a small bridge that is contemporary with the castle. The Camp Eureka resources are dispersed through several areas of the property, amid the farm group, along the main access drive and in a cluster along a primitive cul-de-sac in the southwest corner of the property. The third group, the service complex, is a cluster of buildings situated near Berry Brook Road between the entrance gates and the castle. These buildings are ranged along a short unpaved stretch of service road that connects the public road with the main access drive. The service complex includes two structures that appear to be contemporary with the castle, another built in the first half of the twentieth century, and one ranch house dating from the latter half of the twentieth century.

The entrance gate is sited along a convex bend in Berry Brook Road. Beyond this, the drive bends sharply to the right and joins the currant access drive, which is sited along the original route. From here, it winds informally up the hill. Approximately one hundred yards west of the castle, the drive forks, with the left branch leading to the farm group and the right branch continuing to the castle.

Craig-E-Clair, or Dundas Castle, is a rambling medievalized seasonal residence with Gothic and Elizabethan stylistic features. Photographs taken during its construction indicate that it incorporates an earlier frame country house, built in the late 1880s, all of which was encapsulated within the castle structure between 1910 and 1924, when it attained its current configuration. The castle includes a house, a bailey, a curtain wall and a folly resembling a barbican.' Viewed from distance along the public road or its private approach drive, the castle appears larger than it is and exhibits a lively silhouette characterized by crenellations and cylindrical turrets.

The castle house is L-shaped in plan and encloses the south and east perimeter of a flat courtyard or bailey. The north and south edges of the bailey are defined by stone retaining walls that represent the freestanding defense curtain walls used in medieval castles. The curtain wall is approximately ten to twelve feet high and constructed of native rubble fieldstone. The wall is largely intact. Built against the curtain wall are two small incomplete rooms in the northwest corner. It is unclear from the surviving remains whether these features were ever completed or built as intentional ruins. The bailey measures approximately 120' east to west by 100' north to south between the house and the curtain walls. It appears to have been originally planted as a lawn, but it is now overgrown with weed shrubs at its northern and western edges. The barbican folly is an enclosed run, narrow and rectangular in plan, extending south from the southeast corner of the house and terminating in a pair of two-story cylindrical turrets. The run is enclosed by two rows of small cylindrical piers suggesting bartizans, which are connected by low stone walls surmounted by iron palings. The turrets and bartizan-like piers terminate in crenelated parapets. The barbican folly is accessible from within the house through an original doorway in the dining room.

The house is asymmetrical in mass and height but unified in composition through the use of consistent materials and repeated forms, including gable and conical roofs and fenestration. The arrangement of facade elements and roof massing is informal and denotes the building's interior program. The building is subdivided into three functional components. The main block, the east end of the south wing, contains the main gate, entrance vestibule, hall (or sitting room), dining room, two staircases and master bedrooms. The massing of the two-and-one-half-story main block is the most complex. It is defined by a steeply pitched transverse gable roof, with the shorter cross gable formed by projecting bays on the north and south elevations. The roof terminates on all four sides in short parapets and is interrupted by seven gable-roofed dormers and three chimneys. East of center on the south elevation is an arched portal flanked by two engaged cylindrical turrets with conical roofs. Adjacent to the main block is the caretaker's residence, at the west end of the south wing. The picturesque one-and-one-half-story unit was used as the year-round living quarters for a caretaker. Its plan is centered above a through-arched doorway, which provides a secondary service entrance to the bailey and is marked by gabled parapets above each portal. Its transverse gable roof is penetrated by four symmetrically arranged gabled dormers and terminates at its west end in a gabled parapet. The service wing is the east wing and contains the kitchen and associated workspaces on the first floor and two chambers above. It is simpler in plan and massing and more symmetrical than the main block. The roof is a straight gable that joins the roof of the main block at the south end and terminates in a gabled parapet at the north end. It is penetrated by six symmetrically placed dormers and two chimneys. The roof has molded copper gutters but no downspouts at present.

The south elevation of the main block is the main facade, indicated by the tower gate. Apart from this, the facades are non-hierarchical. The buildings and barbican are faced with naturally rounded field and streambed stones trimmed with dressed limestone and matching cast-stone units. The natural stone units were selected for relatively uniform size and set as random rubble in recessed mortar joints, most of which appear to have been repointed with thicker joints. Stonework is plumb from grade to eaves and lacks a watertable. The gable parapets are coped with dressed limestone units. Dressed limestone and matching cast stone are also used to enframe window and door openings. All doors and most windows are lancet-shaped, and many windows are grouped in pairs and triplets. Windows in the projecting bay of the main block are rectilinear and arranged in bands in the manner of Elizabethan houses. The dormer windows are enframed within wooden lancet-shaped openings. The building is currently vacant.

The gate is centered within a long stone wall bordering the edge of Berry Brook Road. The gate and stone wall measure approximately 220' in length and progressively step down in height from the center. The tall, ornate wrought-iron gate holds two swinging doors enframed within an arched opening carried by openwork iron piers and crowned by elaborate scrollwork. The gate is flanked by curving sections of iron palings between the open piers and carved limestone posts. Each post is octagonal in plan, stands approximately 11'-0" tall and has recessed panels carved with rosettes. The ironwork of the gate and the stone piers is believed to be of European origin. The posts are distressed by a short cheek wall, measuring approximately 8'-0" long by 9'-0" high. The cheek walls are constructed of coursed native rubble and coped with a single unit of dressed bluestone. Beyond each cheek wall is a lower section of stone wall constructed of streambed cobbles set in wide mortar joints. The cobble wall sections are approximately 7'-0" high and 34'-0" long and coped with short bluestone units. Beyond this, at its outer edges, the wall steps down to 2'-0" high. Each of these 24'-0" lengths of wall is constructed of coursed roughly dressed native rubble coped with large bluestone units. The outermost cobble and rubble walls are surmounted by standard sections of iron paling. All the components of the fence and gate described above appear to be original.

The bridge is a small one-lane bridge carried by a stone jack arch. It is located on the service road south of the farm complex. The coursed rubble is similar in character to the masonry in the entrance gate and it appears to have been built around the same time.

The service group is located close to Berry Brook Road. These structures are sited in a loose cluster, between the entrance gates and the castle. A small dormitory cottage and storage building appear to have serviced house staff and store equipment during the castle period. Two cottages and a ranch house appear to be non-historic buildings added during the Prince Hall period. There is a small shelter next to the security gate. The shelter is a one-room frame building clad in roofing felt.

The farm group is a cluster of four functionally related structures located in a clearing near the southwest corner of the developed property. The farm group is approached by a rough dirt road that forks from the main access road to the castle. The farm road crosses a brook over a stone-arched bridge before climbing steeply to the farm cluster. The farm buildings include a farmhouse, barn, and a late twentieth-century storage shed. Although the farmhouse and barn appear to have structural elements that pre-date the castle, both have been severely altered and the farmhouse is in ruinous condition. Moreover, the original agricultural landscape has been compromised by the construction of the late twentieth-century features associated with Camp Eureka.

The farmhouse is a rambling asymmetrical dwelling that has been altered several times. Most recently it appears to have been remodeled for use as a summer cottage but it is currently unusable. Outwardly the building is massed under a primary transverse gable roof and sided with clapboards and novelty siding. At its core, the building is framed with heavy timbers, which are now exposed due to the deteriorated interior finishes. Due to extensive deterioration, the original plan of the house can not be determined. The core of the building has been extensively remodeled and refinished and is entirely encapsulated by porch and room additions constructed with light framing. The roof has been leaking for several years and the structure is in extremely poor condition.

The barn is made up of several different components. The building is L-shaped with a gable roof. The primary wing runs east-west and has galvanized ventilators; it appears to have housed livestock. There is a shed-roofed manure shed at the west end. The small storage building is located near the barn at the fork where the farm road branches toward the farmhouse and toward the barn complex. The single-room wood-frame building has a gable roof and flush-board siding.

Camp Eureka consists primarily of two groups of clustered features and four dispersed features. Camp Eureka was developed in the late twentieth century. Camp Eureka proper, the larger cluster, is sited in a secluded meadow approached by a short loop off the main access road. It contains twelve one-story, slab-sided camp buildings. These were constructed within the last twenty-five years to accommodate administration, dining and sleeping. This group is visually isolated from the castle. The second group, which includes four buildings used for swimming and picnics, is sited amid the farm complex. In addition to these two clusters, four other structures used or formerly used in the camp operation are dispersed throughout the property. The dispersed features are not visible from the castle. The camp features sited near the farm complex include a latrine, picnic pavilion, changing room and swimming pool. The latrine is a one-story, gable-roofed concrete-block structure with scored plywood in the gable ends. The picnic pavilion is a large gable-roofed pole structure on a slab foundation. It is open on all sides above a low concrete block wall. The changing room is a one-story wood-frame building featuring a gable roof and scored plywood siding. The swimming pool is a large in-ground pool abutting a concrete terrace.

The four Camp Eureka features dispersed throughout the property are a dormitory and three shacks. The dormitory is located across the access road to the farm below the bridge. It is a gabled-roofed wood-frame building sided with scored plywood. The shacks are small shed-roofed shelters with novelty siding. One is located along the access drive to the castle, another is in an open field off the main access drive, and the third is near a traffic control gate barring vehicles from the upper stretches of the roadway off-season. The twelve buildings of Camp Eureka proper, the largest group, are informally arranged in a clearing along a short unpaved loop off the main access road. These rectangular buildings are of wood-frame construction with gable roofs and peeled log slab siding. They include a main building, dining hall, seven bunkhouses and two latrines.