Mystery castle - one of Phoenix's "Points of Pride" - was built by Boyce Luther Gulley in 1927 after he was daignosed with tuberculosis. He didn't want his daughter, Mary, to see him dying, so he moved from Seattle to Phoenix & built her this eternal monument filled with love, history, Native American art and antiquity.
Walking through a maze of 18 different rooms, visitors experience a riot of color and emotions as brown wood blends with orange brick, gray stone merges into white lace, and green glass into scarlet red sofas designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The 3-story structure is built of native stone (some with petroglyphs on them), adobe and automobile parts, and is held together by an odd mixture of sand, cement, calcium and goat's milk.
Adding to its mystique are fascinating artifacts, such as the 13 fireplaces, a grotto tavern with "bunks for the drunk", and a chapel where a creepy figure of Elise, the "chocolate widow" of Tombstone, sits frozen at the piano.
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