Gillette Castle

Visitors and staff report seeing William Gillette himself, smoking his signature pipe, wandering the halls he built, along with the spirit of a former groundskeeper still tending the grounds; one docent has said that a fellow guide felt a presence there, and joked that if the actor's spirit lingers he must be content. Trails around the castle are linked to tales of unexplained sounds and shadowy figures. Gillette, the stage actor whose portrayal of Sherlock Holmes defined the character for a generation of American audiences, designed and built the 24-room fieldstone castle himself between 1914 and 1919, complete with 47 doors each fitted with a unique wooden puzzle lock of his own invention. He lived there until his death in 1937; the State of Connecticut bought the estate from his executors in 1943 and opened it as a park the following year.