Phase 3 will consist of 3 parts:

1. Architecture and engineering design (includes site survey, substrata test drills) ($400,000 based on %10 of the estimated overall project cost).
2. Construction (probably in phases)
3. Habitation and operation (probably in phases).

Castle design sketch (Autocad makes things look so exact! Nothing about this is exact, yet!) Ground floor. (Approximately 30,000 sq. ft. basement, 20,000 sq. ft. for the ground and first floors, approximately $1,300,000/floor based on $40/sq. ft. project cost, about $4,000,000 overall castle cost.) (Sullivan’s Research estimate: $120/sq. ft. = about $10,000,000)

Second floor.

Castle Description (for now):

(All measurements are approximate!) Castle Thornwood overall will be generally rectangular, 180' East to West and 140' North to South. The walls will be 25' high with the roof peaks of the buildings inside at 35', except for the Great Hall, which will reach 45'. There will be 3 20' interior diameter, 60' tall towers on the NE, NW and SW corners. The SE corner will be the "original Keep": a tower 35’ interior diameter and taller than the other towers. The Gatehouse will be in the west wall with twin, 15' diameter towers, a 12' wide and 16' tall entrance, gates, portculis, and a drawbridge over a dry moat (well, damp maybe).

The Castle foundation will be a rebar-reinforced concrete double footing: the outside footing will be 2' wide and 2' deep, the inside footing will be 16" wide and 2' deep. On top of the outside footing will be an 18" reinforced concrete wall and on the inside footing the wall will be 1' thick, with 3.5' separating the two walls for a total of 6' from outside face to inside face. The two walls will be joined at 8' to 10' intervals by 8" thick reinforced concrete walls, the voids to be filled with rubble. The two walls will continue upwards to a height of 35' above the footings, to where the wall walk will begin. The concrete on the outside of the castle will be striated to resemble cut stone. There will be a dry moat with roads along the north and west sides. Under the 90'X100' courtyard will be the main cistern. It will be of reinforced concrete and its walls will be accessible through and connected to vaulted walkways from the basement storerooms. The cistern will have 5' of fill on top of it to keep it, for the most part, below the frost line. Inflow will be piped in from roof collection points, possibly a well, and our water processing plant. Water will be pumped up to holding tanks in the towers for a gravity-fed water system. Overflow from the cistern will be fed into the slough south of the castle.

The courtyard will be sand and gravel, possibly cobbled or stone paved.

Insulating the rooms of the structures inside the castle walls from the walls themselves will be 2' of straw bales or paper bales, or some equivalent sort of insulation. (We want the look of a real castle, not necessarily the feel of it.) The walls will then be lathed and plastered. There will be no windows to the outside of the castle on the ground floor; there will be a few arrow-slit type 4' tall windows (maybe 1' wide though, and glassed) looking out of the castle from the second floor height along the East, North and West walls. The South wall will have more of these windows but larger and with mural seating alcoves in the walls, possibly as a later, Elizabethan modification to the original fortification.

The Great Hall will be on the East side of the castle. It will be 50' wide and 75' long with a large open-front fireplace in the center of the East wall. It will be hammer-beam construction, 43' tall in the center, with 10' wide galleries along the sides 8' off the floor. The floor will be stone with plenum piping for warm air piped from return vents in the ceiling and air piped through the fireplace walls. We're thinking about having trap-door hidden gas hookups in the middle north and south thirds of the Hall so as to augment winter heating with "floor braziers" (possibly adding some wood to the fires to get that authentic choking smoke effect...)

Light for the Hall will be from the aforementioned slit windows to the East out of the second floor height of the hall, from tall, relatively narrow, openable and shuttered windows looking onto the courtyard at the 1st and 2nd floor levels, and from one large (possibly stained glass) window in the top of the South wall. There will be a double system of alternate lighting: a few large wall sconces for large candles (it turns out that all those lovely candles and torches on the walls in movie castles are imaginary, that the inhabitants actually had to do with candles carried about in candle holders! Winters are going to be dark, indeed!), and, for thorough cleaning and emergencies, bright electric lighting ordinarily hidden decoratively away.

The Great Kitchen will be South of the Great Hall. It will be thoroughly modern, antiseptic, well lit, of commercial grade, 20'X20', with 2 large ovens, at least one large microwave oven, 2 full sinks, 2 refrigerators and 1 full size freezer, a commercial size dishwasher, and lots of counter and storage space. There will be a 20'X20' storage area under the kitchen including a wine cellar with access via dumbwaiter and stairs.

The NE tower and adjacent 2nd floor space to the west of the tower will be a "Royalty Suite". The rooms there will be set up as authentically as possible, while building in as much comfort as possible, to be rooms in which travelling royalty would have expected to sleep, hold audiences, and entertain while visiting loyal land holders. Yes, there will be chamber pots, in "close stools" for our "royalty" (but there will also be the option of a "garderobe" that just happens to be connected to the castle's sewage system). We would provide appropriate clothing that the retinue would have brought for the royalty, appropriate writing materials and table for the producing of documents or missives, bathing facilities, etc..

We plan to offer these rooms on a limited basis, along with our services as local land holder hosts and household, and retinue, to people interested in a short term royal experience. For their stay we would endeavor to provide as authentic a "living history" experience as we can, however without most of the truly awful aspects of actually living in the Middle Ages: a minimum of rats, lice, uncleanliness, and what we, today, would deem cruelty.

Some of the activities we have in mind for "The Royal Experience" are: participating in the various ordinary pastimes occurring (weaving, embroidery, weapons repair and construction, combat practice, horse training and exercising, music, overseeing of house, grounds and fields), ordinary meals (at least, as ordinary as loyal landholders would have prepared for their royal guests on non-feast days), a "court" where the "royalty" could decide matters of justice, one all-out feast with authentic food and rigmarole, possibly a hunt (a small one for birds or rabbits on the 80 acres, some more elaborate simulated affair with horses and a trip down to the Hay Flats Recreation Area, or a real one with tags, guides, airplanes, the whole 9 yards, for moose, caribou or deer, during hunting season, of course), and/or whatever else we can come up with.

The chapel may be in the 2nd floor above the Great Kitchen.

The ground floor rooms on the West and South sides of the courtyard will be workshops, store rooms, animal facilities, and a changing room and shower for visitors participating in strenuous activities. The workshops may include metal and woodworking, flax and wool processing, crop processing (storage will be in the basement), and possibly a ceramics shop. Animal facilities may include stalls for horses and the related storage necessary, and chicken and rabbit facilities. There will be a storeroom for armor and weapons associated with Medieval combat re-creation. (Armor and weapon replicas will be here and there, wherever they ought to be in a castle.)

On the 2nd floor of the south side of the courtyard will be a 15'X80' hall or series of rooms with equipment and storage for weaving, sewing, music, and books. One scenario for this space is an immensely long library with looms, fabric, tables, instruments, and mural seating alcoves with windows to the south and windows and doors to a 5' wide walkway extending the length of the room along the courtyard.

That walkway would continue along the west side of the courtyard at the 2nd floor level. The walkway will have a 3.5' railing with posts up to the roof overhang. There will be a fold down wall stored folded up into the ceiling of the walkway in the summer, which will be let down to become an insulated, windowed wall along the courtyard side of the walkway in the winter.

The rooms and apartments on the 2nd floor on the north and west sides of the castle, and the ground floor of the north side, will be available in a variety of arrangements to include condominium style ownership, leasing, rental, hostel style rental, and bed and breakfast style rental. There will be a public dress code associated with any type of inhabitance, with appropriate clothing provided for rent or purchase by guests and visitors.
The rooms and apartments will be fitted out with varying sets of Medieval, as well as modern (discreetly) accoutrements: fireplaces (modern, efficient woodstoves to cut down on the speed with which we use up our wood pile and lot, and the amount of pollution), candle holders with electric lighting also available, modern plumbing, containers for bathing and shower/bath facilities also available, modern kitchens, wiring for appliances, computers, televisions, telephones, etc.. Some of the apartments will have their own laundry facilities, some will depend on a communal laundry room. All of the rooms will be temperature and sound insulated with strawbales, or equivalent R and sound value materials. Modern fire retardation systems will be included. There will be at least one elevator: handicapped residents and visitors will be considered in the design.

The rooms in the SE corner and tower of the castle are reserved already :)

Either on the ground floor of the SE tower, or in a structure against the outside of the south wall, will be our waste management and water treatment plant. This will be a Living Machine(tm) built by Living Technologies Inc. and operated by us as trained by them. ($150,000)

Outside the walls of the castle to the south with access through a sally port will be a walled, terraced garden with a small orchard.

We hope to be self-supporting through the following activities:
1. The Royal Suite Experience hosted 4 to 6 times per year at a price between $10,000 and $100,000, depending on how good we get at it, demand, and how much trouble it is.
2. Castle apartment rentals and leases, prices as yet undetermined.
3. Facility rental by groups and organizations for parties, events, weddings, etc..
4. Hosting of classes teaching various skills, crafts and arts associated with the Middle Ages to include weaving and associated skills, dyeing, music, dance, calligraphy, metal working, armor construction, Medieval wood working, Medieval combat and jousting, clothing construction, food storage, architecture, stone working, Medieval social structure and systems, etc..
5. Rental of housing or workshop space in the village.
6. Tavern/inn proceeds.
7. Sale of excess garden, field and orchard produce.
8. Tours.
9. Participating in arrangements with educational institutions whereby students of Medieval Studies could participate in a field study program.
10. Production and sales of video and audio presentations concerning activities associated with Castle Thornwood.
11. Sale of stock as a corporation.

12. Anything else we can think of or is suggested to us that looks legal and feasible.

The remainder of the 80 acres will be maintained in its current, virgin wood condition as much as possible by the construction of trails and encouraging residents and visitors to stay on the trails in their strolls through the forest. We will practice conscientious forest management and studied non-management so as to, hopefully, retain most of the current wild life and forest character, while providing for our wood burning and some construction needs onsite.