Florida's Castle Otttis - Vilano Beach

You would never expect to find an Irish Castle from a thousand years ago along the coast of Florida, just North of St. Augustine.

Castle Otttis was designed to be a landscape sculpture, open to the elements and rising up more than 50 ft.

It was built by Otis Sadler and Rusty Ickes between 1984 and 1988.  The two men took care of all of the all of the masonry themselves with no additional paid labor.

They poured an estimated seven million pounds of concrete, with ramparts and 88 window openings left without glass to allow the elements into the castle.

The interior was created under guidance of historians from the Catholic Diocese of northeast Florida to replicate an atmosphere of an Abbey in Ireland during the same period.

The exterior was completed in 1988 and the interior was handled by Lee Carpenter,  who took three years to complete all the interior woodwork, mainly working with cypress wood and some old southern heart pine.  Carpenter built eight elaborate staircases, an alter, a pulpit, a series of pews, a choir loft and a bishop’s chair.

Visiting the castle is by appointment only, whether it’s for school trips, wedding ceremonies, or private tours.   It does have a public interdenominational Christian worship service on the last Sunday of each month.

Bring your swords.