Searching for Dystopia: Faymore's Castle

Sam and I set off on a new adventure to find the ruins of a building known as Dr. Faymore's Castle in northern Ohio.

Dr. Faymore and his wife Doris started building the massive thing in the 1970s, but building a castle isn't an easy task and it was only about a third of the way completed by 1982 when the walls came tumblin' down, as the saying goes. It seems Dr. Faymore was Breaking Bad with prescription drugs. His troubles started with wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of people who had overdosed on medications he prescribed. Soon after, the doctor was busted by the DEA for illicitly dispensing huge amounts of narcotic medications. You can read a dramatic account of his arrest here. Dr. Faymore was sentenced to forty years in prison, but ultimately served fifteen.

Supposedly, all of his money was eaten up by legal fees, and so his dream home was never completed. It's hard to find a buyer for a partially-constructed castle, especially since the asking price in 1985 was $300,000, a steep price for a home in the area, even today.

And so it lies completely abandoned. Over time, looters cleaned out the valuable fixtures, and the floors decayed away. Little is left but the cinderblock walls.

The place is massive. Doris and Dr. Faymore intended their master bedroom to be 90' X 35', and it boasted a 45-foot long drawbridge, aviary, greenhouse, and wine cellar. I saw none of these, and nor the in-ground pool that local kids once turned into a secret skate park.

There used to be a long, paved driveway, but now the entire property is choked with weeds, brambles, brush, and trees. It wasn't easy to get to, and the ground is treacherous. I mean, seriously treacherous. Sections of cinderblock have crumbled away and jagged pieces of metal rebar poke up out of the ground in unexpected places. Not to mention the nails, broken glass, and other debris. Don't try this at home, kids.

















The drawbridge in the front is long gone, and the only way in was this narrow doorway that dropped straight down into NOPE. In my younger, more athletic (and stupider) years, I might have gone for it, but I decided to head around the side of the house to see if there was a more sensible entry point.

There was! I don't know what made this jagged, doorway-sized hole, but I'm happy to take advantage of it.















The main room was massive, with towers placed outside around the perimeter walls, and is now home to some respectably-sized trees. At least fifteen years old, I'd guess.









You can see some of the fireplaces on the wall to the left.

The second floor is almost completely gone at this point. Only a few joists left here and there.

Flooring debris in the bottom of one of the towers. A comment on another blog post I saw about the castle claimed that a sheriff had the second floor burned years ago out of fear the local kids would hurt themselves exploring up there. I didn't see indications of fire, myself, but it's possible it was intentionally dismantled at some point.





The walls are riddled with these holes in the interior. The rumor was that Dr. Faymore had hidden money or jewels inside the walls during construction. (Though one imagines if that was true, his wife would have retrieved the loot when they needed money for his appeals.) Stories vary as to whether it was the DEA or local vandals who made the holes. The Faymores called the castle "Treasure Palace." Perhaps people thought they meant the name literally. Dr. Faymore died in 1995, having never revealed the location of any secret treasure within the structure.









Some of the graffiti was interesting. Perhaps ruins make people feel philosophical.

If the castle had been completed, it would have been a pretty incredible place. The lot is actually quite lovely, overlooking this windy little creek. But it seems the property is doomed to decay quietly in the northern Ohio woods.






UPDATE: Sadly, Faymore's Castle was demolished in the summer of 2016.