Castles and Housing Crises

By Karen Sternheimer

When I have visited Europe, I always found the castles there a bit shocking in their sheer size and number. One can stumble upon a castle on a walk or on the side of the highway, as they are seemingly everywhere. Their magnitude can be visually stunning, yes, but the American in me feels a bit smug that we don’t have a royal family or old castles to tour. 

Except that we do—maybe we don’t have royalty, but in the U.S. the unofficial royals still build and live in modern-day castles, especially in Los Angeles where I live, a city that is often ranked as the most unaffordable and is in the midst of a housing crisis.

On a vacation laar year, we spent a night in Füssen, Germany, not far from the famed Neuschwanstein Castle. Built in the late nineteenth century by Bavarian King Ludwig II, the structure is perhaps best known for allegedly inspiring the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland. Although it wasn’t completed during Ludwig’s lifetime, it was intended to be a personal residence. At nearly 65,000 square feet it was slated to have about 200 rooms. It is one of the most visited castles in Europe.

We hiked up to the castle on a rainy afternoon, which helped thin the crowds, estimated to be about 6,000 a day. We didn’t go inside—we were there to hike, and we didn’t have tickets, which often must be purchased well in advance.

Neuschwanstein Castle

The castle is estimated to have cost the equivalent of 47 million Euros, or just under $50 million dollars, which apparently even the king couldn’t afford—he died deeply in debt. Today, the tourist trade likely brings in about 90 million Euros and is apparently owned by the German state of Bavaria. 

Neuschwanstein Castle up close

Nearby sits Hoehenschwangau Castle, which was a short hike from Neuschwanstein on our way from Füssen. It is also open for visitors, although it is much less crowded than Neuschwanstein. While this castle is much older, dating back to the 12th Century, it was also in King Ludwig’s family, and today it is owned by the Wittlesbacher Ausgleichfunds, a foundation that exists to both preserve history and support the family’s heirs.

Hoenschwangau Castle

Castles’ art and architecture can be exquisite, and I can’t help but take photos of their façades, as I did when we drove on the highway in northern Italy near the Austrian border and spotted these castles (below) just off the road. 

Castles are also great examples of the lasting effects of income inequality. While great wealth created by conquest helped fund the castles, the fascination surrounding a seemingly bygone era of princes and princesses drives the tourist trade today. In Europe, wealth and castles seem to represent fairy tales, thus the Disney connection and the feeling of visiting a “magical world” inside their walls. 

Castles in Italy

Back in Los Angeles, while taking a hike I noticed that the large homes nestled in the hillsides were not all that different from some of the castles I spotted in Europe. Yes, they are smaller than Neuschwanstein, but some do offer occasional tours for charitable events (with pricey tickets that guaranteeing only their wealthy neighbors can participate). 

There are also van tours of stars’ homes, but those don’t get you inside. They might not even really be the stars’ homes, but there is and has been a tourist industry profiting from the palatial estates that most of us can only imagine living in.

Large homes in Los Angeles

According to the Realtyhop Housing Affordability Index, the average listed price of a home in Los Angeles is $1.1 million, and the median income is just under $79,000 a year. Basically, that means the median earning household would need to spend 99.3 percent of their income to afford a median priced home.

You can tour a real-life mansion in Santa Barbara, about 90 minutes up the coast from Los Angeles. Bellosguardo, like Neuschwanstein, was an estate owned by a wealthy family that spent almost no time there. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

This is the mansion that heiress Huguette Clark left behind — well, one of them. For half a century, as Clark (1906-2011) paid an estimated $40,000 per month to keep it unchanged, the coveted estate known as Bellosguardo remained no livelier than the cemetery next door. 

But now outsiders trickle in. For the last year and a half, the Bellosguardo Foundation has been quietly offering ground-floor tours for $100 a head, and it may soon open up more of the long-idle estate to visitors.

For anyone fascinated by great estates, robber barons, generational wealth or just human psychology, the tour is a chance to see territory that’s been off-limits for decades. It’s also a haunting illustration of what money can buy and what it can’t.

(If you want to read more about Huguette Clark and her money and properties, I highly recommend the book Empty Mansions.)Housing in the U.S. has become increasingly unaffordable over the past twenty years, and Europe is facing a similar problem (in part due to tourism taking rentals away from long-term residents). Castles, mansions, and the like are visible representations of income inequality and the housing crisis. Los Angeles passed a tax on properties sold above $5,150,000 to pay for housing solutions. Can mansions, ironically, be part of the solution to the housing crisis?

Editor's note: this post was written before the wildfires devastated parts of Los Angeles

Photos courtesy of the author

Comments

[Block Blast]

European castles have a priceless historical and cultural value, unlike modern mansions in America. They are not only symbols of power but also a testament to the development of architecture through the ages. However, there are parallels between the lavish buildings of the aristocracy of the past and the super-rich of today – both reflect the staggering disparity between rich and poor.