You’d think that the workmen just dropped their tools and walked out. Visitors say that although many of the castles look complete from the outside, they are unfinished on the inside. Unable to repay its heavy loans, Sarot went bankrupt in 2018, and the project was abandoned, resulting in the world’s largest and most expensive ghost town. Ultimately, 583 castles were completed, and a few were actually sold, although many buyers pulled out.īut the Turkish lira plummeted in value when the economy went downhill. They also wanted to attract visitors, financial gain, and attention to this part of the country.
The developers hoped to attract wealthy Middle Eastern buyers who’d be interested in owning their own castles in a romantic setting. The company spent some $200 million on the project, and it planned for each castle to sell for between $400,000 and $500,000.
#Abandoned castles plus#
In 2014, the Turkish property developer Sarot Property Group began an ambitious project: the construction of a total of 732 luxurious Disneyland-style castles, plus leisure centers, shops, and Turkish baths. Located halfway between Istanbul and Ankara in the Black Sea Region of Turkey, near the historic village of Mudurnu, Burj Al Babas isn’t very old. Esin Deniz / The History Of Turkey’s Largest Ghost Town It’s the world’s largest and most expensive ghost town, and here is the story of how it came about. That’s exactly what Burj Al Babas in northwestern Turkey looks like. The site has been abandoned for about three decades.Picture this: hundreds of elegant, identical, Gothic-style castles, complete with turrets and balconies and arranged in semicircles against a backdrop of rolling hills and dense green woods - but no living soul in sight. But many locals felt that the project was wasteful, and soon, the funds to build it – in the middle of an open-pit mine in the neighboring town of Needmore – were depleted. Bedford is, indeed, where much of the nation’s limestone is sourced, including that used to build the Empire State Building. The pile of stones is all that’s left of a $7 million effort to build a limestone ‘amusement park’ that aimed to call attention to the ‘Limestone Capital of America.’ The town of Bedford wanted to compete with larger, more well-known cities for tourists and imagined that building a 1/5 scale replica of Egypt’s Great Pyramid, as well as their own miniature Wall of China, would do the trick. But the origin of these structures are a little more mundane than the deteriorating history of a forgotten civilization.
#Abandoned castles series#
A series of partially-built pyramids can be found all over the property, as well as the remains of a large stone wall. Bedford Limestone Pyramid, IndianaĪnyone who came upon this bizarre stone structure in the middle of the woods in rural Indiana might think they had stumbled upon ancient ruins. All that’s left are these skeletal remains, which are now preserved by a historic foundation. However, a raging fire of indeterminate cause destroyed most of the buildings and the belongings that were left inside in 1969. After Bannerman’s death, the estate was sold to New York State, the military goods given to the Smithsonian. The castle features docks, turrets, garden walls and moats, but for all its ornamentation, it was little more than a warehouse for decades. Businessman Frank Bannerman purchased it in 1900 and spent 17 years building his Scottish-style dream castle, which he used to house his enormous collection of surplus military equipment. Bannerman Castle was built on an island in the Hudson River that had previously been used as a military prison by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Surprisingly enough, it’s actually within minutes of Manhattan.
Looking at photos of this striking castle facade, you might imagine that it’s located somewhere in Europe.
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