April 4,2006
FEATURES‘Mystery Castle’ offers different and affordable experience for young and old alike
One day, during the year of 1927, Boyce Luther Gulley packed his few belongings and left his family in Seattle and began a long journey on foot to Phoenix, Arizona.
He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and not wanting to burden his family with his disease, he opted to build a dream castle for his daughter.
With little money and two years of architectural engineering from a Texas college under his belt, he built what is known today as “Mystery Castle.”
It is truly what one might envision as “a diamond in the rough.” Made from native stone, adobe, chunks of petroglyphs, and automobile parts, the 18 room castle located in South Phoenix, was finished in nearly15 years.
His daughter, Mary Lou Gulley, received a phone call from a lawyer just shy of her 19th birthday. He informed her and her mother that there was a castle waiting for them in Arizona.
They moved right away and Mary Lou, now in her 80’s, has never left.“Everything is exactly the way my father had left it. I of course had electricity and running water added quite some years ago, but for the most part, I have left everything the way he had it.”
With a different theme to every room in the house, the castle along with Ms. Gulley herself has something unique yet interesting and very bizarre to offer.
There is a chapel inside the walls of the castle where 48 weddings have taken place. “Every bride that has gotten married here, left one shoe in this room for good luck.”
Sure enough, there is a book case with a woman’s shoe occupying each cubby space. Some are obviously from many decades ago and some are more recent.
There is another room in the house which has a more eerie vibe to it. It is a cemetery with real dirt, rock and headstones with names engraved in them.
To top it off, a skeleton hangs from the ceiling overlooking the headstones below.
Upon moving into the house, Mr. Gulley left instructions for his late wife and daughter to find a secret trap door that he designed.
After they found the door and opened it, they were rewarded with two $500 bills, gold nuggets and a Valentines Day card that Mary Lou had made for her father many years before.
Walking around the house and marveling at the various trinkets and unique artifacts is like a blast from the past.
One can almost envision Boyce Luther Gulley hard at work, using his own two hands to build a dream castle for his little girl.
Taylor Rice went with his grandmother to view the historical gem.
“I think that the most interesting part [of the castle] is the wishing well out on the patio. I like how you can lower the pail down to the cantina on the lower level, wish for a drink and have it sent back up to you with whatever you wished for. It’s a very clever idea!”
Whether or not Taylor would recommend that other family and friends to take this trip he replied,
“Sure. I enjoyed viewing it. I have never heard such a story and seen such a place in my life. What I think is amazing is that Mary Lou even still lives here!”
Volume 43, Issue 12. Today is
Mystery Castle brings visitors into a different decade.
photos by Kim Bryant