He promised his 3-year-old son a castle in 1978. Decades later, he built Highlands Castle on a New York mountaintop

A three-year-old boy probably had little idea what his father meant when he promised to build him a castle. But John Lavender II kept his word. What began as a reassurance to his son in 1978 eventually became a decades-long construction project on a mountaintop overlooking Lake George in upstate New York.

Lavender was 23, newly divorced and sharing a townhouse in Clifton Park, New York, with five other men when he made the promise to Jason. He told his son their living arrangement was temporary and that one day he would build him a castle.

Five years later, a chance stop for coffee changed the course of that promise. Lavender said, “I believe I was led to this spot,” adding, “Stopping for a cup of coffee changed my life,” as quoted by UNIQ Hotels.


Lavender spotted a small advertisement in a local penny-saver circular at a diner while driving around Lake George. He put a quarter into a payphone, called about the property and bought a mountaintop in Bolton Landing in 1982.

That land became home to Highlands Castle, a property that Lavender built without formal architectural training and with help from his son, friends, carpenters and hired workers.

A Payphone Call Led to a Mountaintop Purchase

At the time, Lavender had founded a fundraising corporation that helped schools raise money for their students. The work gave him summers off, which he could spend with Jason and use to build their home.

He had no formal architectural blueprints. Instead, he sketched measurements by hand on oversized sheets of poster paper and worked with three carpenters, framing a few walls at a time.

The construction gradually took shape. Friends and hired workers joined the effort, while Jason became involved as he grew older. Lavender once joked that he had promised his son a castle but had never said he would not have to help build it.

Jason eventually brought members of his high school football team to the property for a summer of stonework on the main house. Around 1,000 tons of local granite went into the building, laid over several decades.

Lavender did not even know the property had such an expansive lake view when he bought it. He discovered the view while clearing trees for the home's foundation.

A Fall From the Roof Changed the Plan

The construction suffered a major setback in 2008, when Lavender fell backward from a ladder while working on the castle's roof. He shattered his right leg in 20 places and spent eight months in a wheelchair and on crutches.

During his recovery, he began considering opening the property to visitors. He and his wife, Yvonne, made that happen in 2010. They still live in a private section of the main house and handle almost everything themselves, apart from cleaning between guest stays.

Lavender met Yvonne in 1986 at the Sagamore resort in Bolton Landing, where she worked as an assistant manager. They married on the property in 1992.

Jason later earned an architectural engineering degree from Penn State. The son who had helped his father build the castle went on to study the profession formally.

Highlands Castle Grew Into Three Separate Buildings

The main Highlands Castle is the largest structure on the property. Construction began in 1982 and the building features a Great Hall with 25-foot vaulted ceilings and 21 floor-to-ceiling windows, according to UNIQ Hotels. European tapestries, hand carved wooden knights and Gothic antique furniture fill the space.

Some of the furnishings were collected before construction was finished, with Lavender using them as references while building the house around them.

The entrance features mid-19th-century Romeo and Juliet stained-glass doors. Lavender found them at an antique dealer in Cape Cod around 1979, before he had purchased the mountaintop. The dealer initially refused to sell them, but contacted Lavender months later after his health began to fail. The doors, originally designed by Tiffany for a Vanderbilt family home, now stand between the entrance hall and the Great Hall.

Two other buildings were added to the property. The Castle Gatehouse was completed in 1988 while the Castle Cottage followed in 1995.

The estate sits above Lake George with views stretching across the water and toward the Adirondack Mountains. Lavender says he considers himself a steward of the property rather than its owner, as per UNIQ Hotels.