Frequently
Asked Questions
Why
are you building Lego® castles?
I have always been very interested in ancient times,
particularly the medieval period with chivalry, "swords and
sorcery" and the like. I built my children a play castle
from redwood, using newsprint rolls for the towers, complete with
drawbridge and knights. I have also been a Lego builder since the
early 1970s, when my wife and I got our children Kraft® Lego
sets, distributed by Samsonite Corporation. When Lego came out
with the Black Falcon's Fortress [set #6074] in 1986, and for the
first time there was the chance to build castles with round and D-shaped
towers, the two interests meshed, seemingly permanently.
What
do you do when you're not building Lego castles?
By profession I am a dermatologist, diagnosing and
treating skin diseases and skin cancer. After 37 years of
practice, I retired in mid- 2011. I love to play golf, do some
gardening and serve on several boards and committees. I used to
build castles from April to December, then spend the winter
months in Illinois designing future castle projects, but after my
dear "Lego-suffering" wife and I redecorated our
basement to fit my hobby - and with the advent of digital cameras,
now I design and build year-round without regard to the season.
Since I no longer have to build castles in portable sections to
photograph on our patio, building is much more relaxing too.
Where
do you get plans for your castles?
I draw them myself. For the first few years, I visited libraries
wherever I travelled, looking for previously unseen books about castles. I
photocopied pictures and plans for hundreds of real castles, and kept them in
alphabetical stacks. Once I had gathered enough information about a castle, that
castle's pictures were moved to the short stack of castles to be
drawn in Lego "minifig-scale" - the size Lego knights
and ladies could live in. Now I do most of my searching on the
internet. I draw the castle plans and elevations on 8 squares to
the inch graph paper.
How
long does it take to build one of your castles?
Anywhere from a couple of days to about five months,
depending on the size (Okay, The second modelling of Dover Keep
did take 10 months - but only because I had to make numerous dark gray Lego
purchases to complete the project). There have been many other
smaller instances where I overestimated my hoard of necessary
bricks, and construction was on hold a week or two while I awaited
a shipment from Lego Pick-a-Brick or a wonderful BrickLink member.
What
order did you build the castles in?
A lineage is now available on this website.
How
many Lego bricks does it take to make a castle?
Anywhere from a couple thousand to tens of thousands, all
depending on the size of the project. Small Scottish and Irish towers such
a Affleck or Clara could be built by most anyone with lots of Lego bricks, since
a huge number of gray bricks isn't needed. I have a folder of castles
which are too large for consideration, but that group has dwindled considerably
over the past couple of decades, as my collection has grown.
What's
the largest castle you have built to date?
Vajdahunyad [#113, Romania] reigned as largest for more
than 3½ years at 36, 310bricks, but my 127th castle, the awesome Schloß
Neuschwanstein in
Bavaria is the largest by far. She required 52,461 Lego bricks
roughly broken down into 23,815 white bricks, plates, etc; 8789
old dark gray Lego; 3205 black slopes (for the roofs); and 16,652
other colors (infrastructure, gatehouse, etc.) 271 support and
grider bricks, and 166 BURPs and LURPs were utilized.
Do
you take apart each castle before you build another one?
Usually, particularly with a large castle like Chillon or Caerphilly, which practically decimate my supply of gray
bricks. However, as I am occasionally asked to display a castle and/or
other projects, I generally try to have ay least one small castle available at
all times for such occasions.
Harlech (Wales) | #41 | Dec. 1991 | 16,416 bricks |
Trim (Ireland) | #50 | Mar. 1994 | 17,817 |
Warkworth (England) | #56 | June, 1995 | 18,624 |
Middleham (England) | #59 | Dec. 1995 | 19,066 |
Conway/Conwy (Wales) | #63 | Dec. 1996 | 21,567 (13,681 light gray) |
Bolton (England) | #67 | Sept. 1998 | 18,996 (16,150 light gray) [Oops?] |
Chillon (Switzerland) | #68 | Nov-Dec, '98 | 30,698 (20,418 light gray) |
Die Wartburg (Germany) | #79 | Sept-Oct, '01 | 27,030 (13,056 light gray) [double oops!] |
La Mota (Spain) | #89 | Jan-Feb, '03 | 22,633 (18,824 light gray) |
Chepstow (Wales) | #95 | Jan-Apr, '04 | 26,352 (16,785 light gray) |
Caerphilly (Wales) | #100 | Jan-Feb, '05 | 31,950 (23,495 light gray) |
Vajdahunyad (Romania) | #113 | Nov '06-Jan '07 | 36,310 (20,158 light gray & 6,157 dark gray) [Biggest until 2010] |
Diósgyõr (Hungary) | #115 | Nov '06-Jan '07 | 34,352 (24,794 light gray) [new light gray record] |
Neuschwanstein (Germany) | #127 | Jan '10-Jun '10 | 52,461 (23,815 white & 8,789 dark gray) |
Neuschwanstein II (Germany) | #143 | Nov '13-Apr '14 | 58,201 (with Throne Room, Singer's Hall, etc.) |
Burg Eltz (Germany) | #187 | Nov '23-Apr '24 | 50,424 [major oops again] |
How
many Lego pieces do you own?
I actually don't have a clue, though I love the question
(and I wish I knew the answer!) The last time I actually counted
my bricks was June 2, 1980, more that 30years ago. On that date I
owned 13,817 Lego bricks (of which about 600 were gray). I would
estimate around 250,000 bricks, but the number could be higher. If I win
the Irish Sweepstakes, I promise
to count every Lego block that I own and post the number on the
Internet! PS: Where can I buy a ticket?
How
many gray bricks do you have?
Well, more than 25,000! Obviously a castle like Chillon exhausts some categories of gray
blocks, but others may be in abundance, depending on the style of
the castle. I probably have about 40,000 light gray bricks, and
now perhaps 12,000 dark gray bricks, and the number keeps growing
slowly, despite Lego Group not making those colors any more.
Okay,
how did you get so much Lego?
I've been buying Lego® Building Toy sets for more than
40 years. While I have tried to be selective [I never buy a set
just because Lego Group markets it], individual designs are very
inviting due to their style [e.g. Star Wars] or content [lotta
gray bricks] and I often buy several of those. For example I own
28 Black Falcon's Fortresses - still the best castle set Lego
ever sold [Well, until the #10305 Lion Knights' Castle!] For a couple
of years I bought lots of Lego through a now-defunct auction
website called AucZilla - the 15 or so auctions were pretty
exciting and hectic...and sometimes expensive for certain
desirable bricks. Then came BrickBay, where thousands of Lego
enthusiasts from around the world opened shops, some selling
unwanted Lego (like me) and others buying sets and used Lego at
garage sales and the like and working at making a living of sorts
reselling Lego. Legal threats from eBay caused BrickBay to become
BrickLink.com, which is now the source of almost all the Lego I
buy. There are currently more than 18,400 "shops" offering
more than 1,400,000,000 Lego bricks and other parts for sale!!
Do
you buy your Lego bricks in bulk?
This is the FAQ that's been on everyone's lips since Ole'
pressed his first plastic building block! While the people at
Lego Group who design the sets of the future and build the models
we see at Legoland and at our local mall undoubtedly get anything
they desire, and while a smathering of architects and designers
occasionally are privileged to model in Lego for purposes of
promoting Lego products, the rest of us have historically bought
Lego bricks in sets at the local store or from Lego Shop at Home,
or more often from BrickLink.com shops or eBay auctions, or maybe
at an occasional garage sale.
That said, Lego had started to sell a few modest sets of 'bulk' (i.e.
individual) bricks quite a number of years ago-- and happily has
expanded that into "Pick-a-Brick" at Lego.com in the
decade plus. I am among the many who still long for even
more choices, but Lego Group is listening!
Have
you shown your castles to Lego?
My correspondence about Lego Building Toy goes back to
February 1969, when I wrote to Samsonite Corporation in Denver
about production of specialized red roof tiles, and received a
nice letter from the Toy Division's Director of Product
Development. My first correspondence with Lego Systems, Inc. was
in December 1977. Of the 11 roof, window and ¼-circle brick
designs I suggested, only 3 were ever manufactured and sold. In
November and December 1979 I built and photographed a 100-picture
series called Lego Wars. I sent Lego Systems pictures from that
Star Wars spinoff in February 1980. In November 1986 I sent 25
pages of designs for a Western town, complete with cowboys,
indians and cavalry, first to Lego Systems and then on to LEGO A/S
in Billund, Denmark. Imagine my delight 10 years later when
Legorado sets debuted in 1996. The equivalent of my cavalry fort
was called Fort LegoLand. I sent a castle design to Lego with the
wild west letter. I suggested an international Lego castle
builders club in that letter as well, and was informed that a
Lego Builders Club was in the works [It has arrived of course].
Lego has been complimentary about my fairly frequent letters
about my castles, many of which requested some hard to get parts.
Is
there any chance of seeing Lego Wars online?
I was real proud of my 1979 Lego Wars, which not only
involved building a variety of models from Lego bricks but three
shooting schedules to match scenes from the original movie --
that is until Lego came out with their models almost twenty years
later and more or less put mine to shame. However, if there's
enough interest I'll make a selection of scenes available. Bottom
line - if you want to see my Star Wars sequence let me know!
Do
you play with the castles when you're done?
Never. I do set up opposing forces of knights and
soldiers occasionally, but only for purposes of photography. The
only actual battle occurred in 1986 after I had photographed the
first model of Goodrich Castle [#2]. I turned the castle and its
array of soldiers over to my oldest sister's four children. The
ensuing conflagration pretty much trashed the castle, which was
my intent in the first place. I enjoyed the battle vicariously! I now have
five grandchildren - ages 12 to 20 years - and they have been very excited about Lego,
of course. Grandpa has
been picking up after them (but I'm trying to train them!) No the
Minnesota three honored me by picking a vacation in Illinois with Grandma and me
(and my Lego?) over a trip to Disneyland! What greater complement!
How
many castles do you intend to make?
As many as time permits. I will not run out of
possibilities!
What
castles haven't you done that you'd like to?
I'm currently a couple dozen designs ahead of my
building schedule, so whenever I have time to build (and then
dismantle), there will be new castles. I used to be frustrated by my inability to find plans for more of the beautiful castles in
Germany, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe. France, Ireland and the
United Kingdom are no problem, with many books and websites
available. With the world wide web, there are few castles which are not
pobssible any more.
Do you have
plans for a last castle?
Is that a morbid question? Actually, I have historically
built a "Christmas" castle each year. Now I just build an
impressive castle for the
Christmas and New Years holidays, and for Brickworld, of course!
Can
I have the plans for one of your castles?
Sure. I build from pretty simple plans and elevations on
graph paper. I found LDraw far too time consuming, though
impressive. Plans for many of my castles are on the website, and
I'll be happy to assist anyone who's trying to reproduce one of
my castles and having problems.
How
have you kept your family from having you certified?
I'm a master of disguise? Actually, my wife Judy has
become more adjusted to my hobby as the years have gone by, and
actually suggested the remodeling of our lower level
years ago, a large part of which is committed to my Lego building
and design! Pictures of this project are on the website. I
believe I have the best Lego storage system in the western
hemisphere...and welcome all challengers.
Who
is this Anne person, and why was she working on your site?
Anne Sullivan was my oldest son Scott's girlfriend for
four years. When she first came to Illinois to celebrate
Christmas with us, we found out about our common Lego bond. We
liked to call it the Lego mind meld. I was finishing up Chillon Castle while she was here, and she was
very impressed. Since she did websites for fun, she felt it
necessary to put them on the web to let everyone see...And thus
the castle webpage project was born!
Return to the main castle page.
Have any other questions? For website related questions, send
them to Robert Carney. Lego castle related questions
should also go to Robert Carney.
Original site created by Anne Sullivan.