Little-Known Castle Has a Colorful Past : Landmarks: A granite copy of an Irish fortress, it is hidden in the high desert of the Antelope Valley. It was a showplace when built in 1924-25.

The builder of this castle in the sand, a Roaring ‘20s real estate baron who looked to the desert for his dream home after helping found Hancock Park, drowned himself in Santa Monica Bay in grief over the loss of his wife and fortune.

A famous broadcast executive who bought it was later declared mentally incompetent and committed suicide by jumping out of a Los Angeles building.

In the course of its 65-year history, it was also reportedly the scene of “ribald and wanton debauchery” by partying socialites, and cowboy star Roy Rogers leased it as a training ground for his horses.

These are highlights of the colorful--some say cursed--past of Shea’s Castle, a granite copy of an Irish fortress. The castle is hidden in the high desert of the Antelope Valley near the northern border of Los Angeles County.

The 6,000-square-foot castle was a showplace at the time of its construction in 1924 and 1925. But for most of the years since, and even today, owners have kept it secluded behind miles of metal fence, making it perhaps one of Southern California’s most overlooked landmarks.

Absent from most local history books and largely unknown to Southern California architecture historians, the estate, also known as Painted Rocks Castle for the Indian rock paintings discovered nearby, has a wildly storied but poorly documented past, little known outside the Antelope Valley.

“It’s been kind of a mystery house,” said Arthur Pickus, a 79-year-old Lancaster resident whose father helped build the castle. Pickus’ wife, Grace Graham Pickus, compiled a 1988 booklet that, through letters and articles she collected, provides perhaps the best history of the place.

The castle’s current owner, Studio City-based Genz Development Inc., has only added to the aura of mystery. Headed by a group of secretive Iranian businessmen, Genz refuses to discuss the firm’s plans for the castle or even allow visitors. Only a caretaker and his family appear to live there now.

The future of the castle seems a mystery as well. Since 1981, Genz and a related company have been planning to develop their 520-acre holding into a luxury community of 120 lots surrounding the castle. But Genz’s latest application to the county for a subdivision permit expired without action in October.

According to county officials, the castle does not have any type of formal landmark designation, meaning the owners could demolish it at any time by obtaining a routine permit, although Antelope Valley historians call it one of the most important landmarks in the region.

“It would probably be a 9 on a scale of 10” in terms of local historical importance, Grace Pickus said.

The multi-turreted castle sits like a foreboding mirage on the estate of rolling hills about 15 miles west of Lancaster, just north of Elizabeth Lake and bordering the California Aqueduct.

While the remoteness of the locale has kept the castle from the public, it also has perhaps spared it damage from vandals or from being torn down to make way for development, Grace Pickus said. “It’s always been more or less of a private place,” she said.

For much of its life, the castle served as a private home or was tended by caretakers for owners who hoped without success to restore it as a club or resort. The building is believed to be structurally sound, although most of the original elegant furnishings reportedly have been removed over the years.

The surrounding area is almost as undeveloped now as it was when Los Angeles real estate baron Richard Peter Shea first decided to build a dream house there for his ailing wife, Jane. Flush with cash from subdividing Hancock Park in the early 1920s and from other deals, Shea spared no expense on the castle.

Construction began in 1924 and continued through 1925, a boon to the drought-stricken area’s economy because scores of men were hired for the work, which included blasting and trimming thousands of tons of local granite boulders to form the castle’s walls, which are two to three feet thick.

When the job was done--at the then-astronomical cost of $175,000, according to a contemporary report in the Los Angeles Times--the castle had at least eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and eight fireplaces, including a large one in the living room adorned with blue-green stone imported from Ireland.

Shea had the castle meticulously patterned after one near Dublin that he reportedly saw a picture of years before, obtaining plans of the original from Ireland.

His castle had its own water supply, heating plant, music room complete with pipe organ and an adjoining stable built in a matching style.

All of this was set on a 1,700-acre-plus estate that included a rock dam that backed up a man-made lake. Shea, who reportedly discovered the area while serving as executor for a nearby property, had also hoped to create a game preserve on the estate.

But after the couple had lived in the castle only a short time, its supposed curse struck. Living in the desert did not help Shea’s wife’s declining health.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Shea’s finances plummeted, and they were forced to leave the castle and move back to the Los Angeles area. His wife died in October, 1932, and sometime after Christmas of that year, Shea drowned himself in Santa Monica Bay.

Legend says he jumped off the Santa Monica Pier. A story in The Times then said only that he drowned himself, and his body was found in the surf near the Venice Pier, attached to a small bag of his cremated wife’s ashes.

According to county assessor’s records, ownership of the castle had passed to a bank several years earlier at the outset of the Depression, beginning a succession of at least 15 other owners who have left their marks on the estate to varying degrees.

One of the best known was Thomas S. Lee, who in the 1930s helped found Los Angeles’ first television station and headed the West Coast’s first major radio network, the Don Lee Broadcasting System. The network had been founded by his father, Don Lee, who made a fortune selling Cadillacs.

A January, 1982, environmental impact report on the housing development proposed for the property provides some of the most colorful history of Lee’s years. Although such reports are typically deathly dull, portions of this one, which was filed with the county, read like a Hollywood novel.

“Tommy collected race cars and racy women,” the report begins. “He was a true playboy in his time. The castle practically became a brothel as a constant stream of friends landed on the private airstrip for weekends of ribald and wanton debauchery.”

The castle parties were among “the more well-known events in Southern California’s wild and woolly” social scene, the report added. Lee owned the castle from mid-1948 until he jumped to his death from the 12th floor of a Wilshire Boulevard building on Jan. 13, 1950.

Lee had been declared mentally incompetent by a court in September, 1948, just months after purchasing the castle. Doctors blamed sedative use stemming from an automobile accident injury. Newspaper articles at the time said he divided his last days between stays at the castle and a Pasadena sanitarium.

Although stories in The Times said then that Lee was not married, the environmental report on the castle said, “His wife, being unfaithful, was later bludgeoned to death by the caretaker. The castle was beginning to take on the reputation of being jinxed.”

The 1982 environmental report was prepared by a consulting firm hired by the then-owners of the castle. Steve Preece, the Newhall land surveyor who wrote the report, said he used information from stories told by a castle occupant and others at the time, acknowledging some of it may have been “untrue.”

Some details about the period are better corroborated, however. Many stories say Lee was a race car enthusiast who built a two-mile midget-car racetrack around the estate, as well as building the aircraft runway that still exists.

After Shea came Roy Rogers, who leased the estate to train his horses, according to the environmental report and other stories.

In later years, the castle became a familiar backdrop for horror movies and TV shows, including “Cannon,” “Rat Patrol” and “The Name of the Game,” according to a brochure that offered the property for sale in the 1970s.

In 1964, the castle was purchased by Walter Gayner, an Orange County developer who sold it in June, 1981, to the Iranian group. From about 1974 until 1985, the property’s caretaker was Ricardo Delgado, who brought in the Iranians but later sued them for fraud, settling last year for $17,000.

Delgado’s son, Roland, a Lancaster real estate agent who also lived at the castle, said Genz is only interested in profit and does not care about the castle’s historical significance.

“What happened there in the past intrigues me. What’s happening there now disgusts me,” Delgado said.

Today, the castle remains locked behind wrought-iron gates. The lake is dry due to the drought. Those few people who have wangled visits in recent years say the castle looks run-down.

Sometime during its odd history, the plaque that Shea mounted on the castle’s entrance vanished. “A dream come true,” it read.

Times researcher Jim Cady contributed to this report.