reformation

Martin Luther and Die Wartburg
at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Decatur, IL on October 28, 2001

The castle at First Lutheran Church. During the week before Reformation Sunday, October 28, I moved the model of Wartburg Castle to First Lutheran Church. The move was greatly facilitated by the generosity of Jim Oettel, whose steady hands and spacious back end made the transfer from my Lego Construction Facility [i.e. basement] much easier than imagined. Please understand we're describing his unexpectedly spacious SUV, which allowed a single trip with me crouched in the rear carefully preventing too much slippage as we negotiated corners. Several of these photos were generosity submitted by fellow parishioners, since my wife and I were in California for the Reformation holiday. You can email your thoughts to carneycastle@comcast.net.

The castle and its creator make headlines...well, sort of. I made the front page of the Decatur Herald and Review as a feature of interest, but the main article was featured on the front on the LIFE section on Saturday, October 27, the day before Reformation Sunday. The article was nicely written by Arlene Mannlein and lots of clever photos taken by staff photographer Carlos Miranda. My only regrets about the article...I've only been in practice for 27 years (not 35) and a picture of the entire castle was not selected for publication. Please kindly thank Arlene for her generous interest at amannlein@herald-review.com.

And the castle must be dismantled... Even though many people inquire about how I can possibly find the space to display 80 castles, the cost and availability of Lego bricks dictates that each castle must be parted with, its bricks recycled for the next project. Here is the final count of the disappearance of Wartburg Castle, which I have told everyone I believed was my largest. What an inaccurate guess on my part! The model of Chillon required 30,698 bricks and while definitely the longest, the Wartburg count is only 27,030, making the model easily the second largest! Chillon remains the pinnacle, at least for now.

Gray Bricks	1x1 = 443 1x2 = 5503 1x3 = 398 1x4 = 869 1x6 = 787 1x8 = 431 1x10 = 42 1x12 = 21 1x16 = 17 2x2 "L" = 115 2x2 = 424 2x3 = 288 2x4 = 626 2x6 = 63 2x8 = 68 2x10 = 49 TOTAL = 10,144	Gray Plates (narrow)	1x1 = 219 1x2 = 292 1x3 = 157 1x4 = 108 1x6 = 106 1x8 = 95 1x10 = 60 2x2 "L" = 37 2x2 = 84 2x3 = 101 2x4 = 77 2x6 = 46 2x8 = 53 2x10 = 26 2x12 = 15 2x16 = 2 TOTAL = 1478
Gray Plates (large)	4x4 = 6 4x6 = 9 4x8 = 35 4x10 = 29 4x12 = 14 6x6 = 6 6x8 = 34 6x10 = 38 6x12 = 7 6x14 = 1 6x16 = 13 TOTAL = 192	Gray Arches Gray Slopes Gray 3x3x6 Corners Gray Rounds Gray Facets Gray Tiles Misc. Light Gray GRAND TOTAL	All sizes = 188 All sizes = 353 + or - "stones" = 41 All sizes = 179 All sizes = 89 All sizes = 136 All sizes = 256 (light gray) = 13,056
Other Colors *Big & Little Ugly Rock Pieces	Red Roof Tiles = 1,503 Black Roof Tiles = 682 Trees & Plants = 170 *BURPs & LURPs = 67 Rest of Mountain = 2884 "Inside" the Mtn = 4628 Castle Non-gray = 3831 People = 166 5x6x2 "Tudor" Walls = 53 TOTAL (non-gray) = 13,974**	REALLY GRAND TOTAL (all bricks) =	27,030


Here's the model with the banner by Susan Wade...	...which inspired the entire project. I began to research German castles...	...with a particular eye out for information about Wartburg.


When I had enough pictures and a layout for the fortress...	...the construction became a labor of love with the...	...wisdom of Martin Luther at the pinnacle.


The upper half of the article	The text portion of the page.