Stokes Castle is Austin’s architectural tour de force. A marked dirt (sometimes mud) road proceeds south beside the gas station near the lower end of Main Street a quarter-mile to this architectural curiosity. You can see it as you approach Austin from the west, a stone sentry standing on a rocky outcrop of the Toiyabes. It is a copy of a Roman villa, built in 1897 as the residence of a prominent mine owner. It is 50 feet square at its base and built three stories high of hand-hewn native granite. The first floor housed the kitchen and dining room, the second floor an immense living room and bath, with bedrooms and another bath on the top floor, and a sun deck on the roof.
The castle is private property and not available for tours, but the nearby overlook offers a view only a half a degree less magnificent than from the Castle’s roof.
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