Glen Eyrie Castle

His daughters offered it to the city but they politely declined on account of running costs. It was then purchased by a consortium of businessmen who intended to transform it into a country club/golf course with further housing. War put a halt to those plans and it was briefly operated as a tea room until 1918 when it was then sold for $450k to "the richest bachelor in New York" and founder of Yale's Elizabethan Club, Alexander Smith Cochran.

In 1920, Cochran became the third of the six husbands of the truly extraordinary, and notoriously bad opera singer, Ganna Walska, whose terrible voice - but total self-belief in her 'talents' - found her parodied in Citizen Kane. They divided their time between here, New York City, and Brookholt which was built by one of the most prolific mansion-builders in the Gilded Age, Mrs Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. Not long after divorcing Ganna, Cochran closed up the castle and spent $100,000 building the Pink House on the sunny-side of the valley but he spent little time there and died in New York in 1929.

The castle remained unoccupied during the Depression but it and the surrounding farmland was maintained by a skeleton staff presumably paid for out of Cochran's estate up until 1938. That year, it was sold to Texas oilman George W. Strake for $200,000. He expanded the Pink House and after making the necessary renovations opened up the castle once more as a venue for parties. He also did some ranching on the property. 

In 1953, Strake sold the castle for a reduced price of $300,000 to "The Navigators," a Christian evangelical ministry who continue to operate the estate today as a Christian conference and retreat center, hosting about 350-events and 46,000-visitors per year.