In Tupper Lake, a man’s home really is his castle
Okay, first — apologies for the headline. I couldn’t resist.
Now on to the cool part. Check out this fascinating article in the Syracuse Post-Standard about the weird collaboration between Ed Leary — a Tupper Lake probation officer who passed away in 2005 — and Skaneatles architect Andy Ramsgard.
For 12 years, Leary and close friend Jimmy Bombard lugged concrete blocks up the 20-acre property. With little outside help, they built the four-story castle by hand.
After Leary’s death, the castle sat untouched until last October, when Ramsgard’s wife, Sherie, read a story about the property in The Post-Standard. The couple drove out to see the castle that week.
Ramsgard is now continuing work on the castle, and he describes Leary’s design and construction of the structure as “brilliant.”
“This is not a project I ever would have started,” Ramsgard said. “I never would have gone into the woods to build a castle. But this story intrigued me. I may not get to write the ending, but I get to write the middle of it.”
So, what’s the moral of the story he’s writing?
“When life gives you cinder blocks,” he said, “you make a castle.”
Go to the Post-Standard to see some great sketches and photographs of the project. And see a full photo gallery here.
I fully expect the APA to take a dim view of this.
According to the article, it’s already APA approved.
–Brian, NCPR
Don’t expect Bret4207 to actually read or understand anything before he comments.
No, I didn’t read the Syracuse article. It might use big words I wouldn’t understand.
So seriously, the APA approved a 4 story CASTLE? Amazing.
spelled: {Skaneateles}
Can we return to “The APA has no issue with a 4 story COMMERCIAL STRUCTURE”? Sorry, but something is wrong with this picture. Ed Leary was a nice guy, sad to hear he passed. But now we’re going to have a 4 story concrete block castle commercial structure and that’s just ducky? There’s a disconnect here somewhere.
No one else finds this more than a little strange?
Ed Leary built this structure with all the appropriate APA permits. They were secured before he began building.
I wonder if it was for a 4 story COMMERCIAL structure as the story says it will become now? This to me rings of the same type of favoritism shown to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mt. Who else gets permission to build 3 level parking structures? While I agree it’s a cool building I have to wonder if the “cool factor” outweighed any reservations? And lets not forget this must have been built around the same time that other guy in Tupper was going through all sorts of trouble trying to build his little camp out in the swamp.
It’s things like this that build distrust of the APA.