I visited an abandoned castle on a New York island that's only accessible by boat. It was hauntingly beautiful.

• When I spotted a castle in the Hudson River from my train window, I had to get a closer look.
• Back then, the abandoned weapon fortress wasn’t open to the public.
• But I got a private tour.

Bannerman Castle was built in the early 20th century as a fortress for weapons by Scottish arms trader Francis Bannerman, The New York Times reported. Gunpowder exploded inside the castle in 1920, and it was abandoned about 30 years later.

Then, in the early 1990s, the Bannerman Castle Trust led efforts to restore the structure and make the island safe for public visitation. It’s been accessible since 2004 and open for tours since 2020.

Welcome to Bannerman Castle, an abandoned fortress in New York’s Hudson River that I visited in 2019.

Bannerman Castle is about 60 miles north of New York City on Pollepel Island.

To get to the castle, I took a cab from the Manitou train station to Donahue Memorial Park in the town of Cornwall, New York.

There, I met up with guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust, the group that oversees the castle’s preservation and maintenance.

I boarded a boat at Donahue Memorial Park and headed to the island.

Pollepel Island is only accessible by boat. Two guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust met me at the dock.

I crammed into the boat with the guides and a handful of volunteer gardeners who do landscaping work on Pollepel Island.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the castle. From the dock, I thought its beautiful, sturdy-looking walls made the building appear almost functional.

From the dock, we climbed 72 stairs to reach the island.

But my guide told me I could not go inside — it’s not safe.

My guide explained that the castle’s towers are supported by external beams braced with steel. Each section weighs 250 pounds.

But even with this support, there’s still a risk that the walls could fall. That’s why all visitors must stay at least 100 feet away from the castle.

Luckily, observation decks are set up around the castle at picturesque vantage points.

Accidental explosions and weather damage have left Bannerman Castle, once a weapons storage fortress, in ruins.

Francis Bannerman VI, an arms dealer who lived in Brooklyn, bought Pollepel Island in 1900. He wanted a place outside the city to store an arsenal of munitions, according to The New York Times, so he built the fortress and an accompanying harbor.

Bannerman’s sons took over the business when he died in 1918.

A room full of gunpowder exploded in 1920.

This shattered the castle’s windows.

Forty-seven years later, the Bannerman family sold the island to New York State.

It eventually became part of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, according to the park’s website.

In 1969, a fire destroyed much of the castle.

After that, Pollepel Island was deemed unsafe and declared off-limits by the State of New York.

Then, in 1992, Neil Caplan, a resident of nearby Beacon, New York, formed the Bannerman Castle Trust.

The group raised money to restore the island; Caplan is its executive director.

The Trust teamed up with New York’s Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation to open the island to the public in 2004.

Today, it serves as a theater, museum, and historical site.

Although the main castle is inaccessible, the Trust stabilized another structure that served as the Bannerman family residence. That’s now the island’s visitor center.

The facade of the building also serves as the backdrop for the theater’s stage.

Inside, visitors can find information about the island’s past.

Modest exhibits explain the site’s history and the castle’s construction. Drawings and documents are framed on the building’s distressed walls.

Visitors can also see preserved fixtures from the castle, like this bathtub.

Although the Trust has restored parts of the castle since the 1990s, the weather has still taken a toll on the structure in recent decades.

According to the Bannerman Castle Trust, much of the castle’s shell collapsed one night in December 2009. Then, just a month later, more walls fell during a winter storm.

On my way back from the castle, the boat took a spin around the island’s perimeter.

From the water, we caught glimpses of other pieces of the abandoned fortress, including its deteriorated harbor.

From afar, it was especially clear that nature has already taken over many parts of this mysterious piece of history on the Hudson River.

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