July 15th Miramont Castle

Miramont Castle. This was the real reason for having our family reunion in Manitou Springs, CO. This is a castle which my mom lived in when she was about 10 years old. It is now a museum that you can walk though. It was really cool to hear stories about what it was like when she lived there as a little girl and to see pictures that my mom has of some of the same things we saw in the castle. Mom by the front door. She was so excited for us all to be there.

This is the front. We of course had to start with family pictures while we were waiting for the castle to open. I have a bunch of them. These are just a few that we got.









Funny face kids.


Nathan and William sword fighting with sticks


We all got individual family pictures with Mom and Dad Here is Debbie and Ryan Denton


Kim and Tim with Tanner, Madi, and Lauren


Stacie (Tony wasn't able to come) Ashe with Nathan, Craig, Erick, and Anthony

Sheri Stephens


Kevin and Sherri Stephens with Avery, Noah, Maisey, and Eliza

Tammy and John Clayton with Annalise, William, Jacob, Spencer, and Bryce

Blake (not able to come) and Ashley Stephens with Chase, Emma, and Porter

Miramont Castle was built by a Father Francolon, a french Catholic Priest, in 1895 as a personal home for he and his mother. He built it into the side of a mountain so that you enter through the front door on the main level and leave out the back door on the 4th floor and top of the mountain. Here is a picture looking down from the top.










This room was my mom's front room. The piano there is the exact one that she used to play! She has a picture of her playing it when she was little.


This is the fireplace in that same room. Where that purple dress is now, used to be a Christmas tree. My mom has a picture of that also.


Proud Mom standing with her piano in the background.


This room was my grandparents bedroom.


Anthony, Erick, Madi, and Jacob standing in front of what used to be my Uncle Mike and Uncle Jed's bedroom.


It looks different now, but this is the room that was my Mom's bedroom when she was 10 years old!




The grand staircase, which has two sets of windows along it as you go up...each a different architectural style.




The beautiful view out one of the windows. The blue house on the right is a bed and breakfast. I think it would be really fun to stay there sometime.






Emma standing by the same type of pull-chain toilet that my mom used when she lived here.


And here is William by a tub like the one she used to take baths in.


This is a room that they say is haunted, but other than the erie music they were playing on the old music box on the left side of this picture, we didn't notice anything strange here.


Here is the gold ceiling in the drawing room




This is the fourth floor which used to be the servant quarters. When my mom lived here, this area was empty and she and a couple of other girls would come up here and into the room with the dolls and play.




The current gift shop was also part of the servant quarters and my mom's play area.


At the end of the tour Grandma bought all the kids a candy stick. I think this may have been their favorite part of the tour.


In 1976, Manitou Springs Historical Society bought Miramont Castle which had been abandoned again sometime before that. They bought it for only $60,000! And have now made it into a museum using a lot of the original furniture and items to fill the 46 rooms. It was an amazing place to visit, made even more cool by the fact that my Mom lived there when she was a little girl!