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Scotty's Castle is a beautiful, historic, two-story
Spanish villa located in Majestic Death Valley National Monument,
California. It is steeped with a mysterious origin involving colorful
and enigmatic larger-than-life characters.
Towards the end of the 19th century there appeared out of the
West a nefarious and charismatic ne'er-do-well, a con-man, named Walter
Scott, a former stunt rider for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, who
could charm the devil himself with his silver-lined tongue. At the turn
of the century in New York City, Scott set himself to selling shares in
an imaginary gold mining operation in Death Valley to various wealthy
society patrons.
One of those who fell under Scotty's spell was Albert Johnson, son of an
extremely wealthy industrialist and businessman who owned several banks,
a utility company, and several stone quarrying operations. Johnson
invested what was then a fortune in Scotty’s operations, and in 1906,
after no return from his investment, Johnson assembled a group of other
investors and they all headed out to Death Valley by train to discover
what had happened to Scott and his gold mine and their money.
They arrived to find that they had been duped. So good were Scotty’s
verbal skills, however, that, in spite of all he had discovered, Johnson
eventually traveled back to Death Valley to meet with Scott to try to
convince him to show his mine. After several visits, they struck up a
friendship in spite of Johnson’s growing awareness of Scotty’s scheme.
Over the next couple of years, Johnson came to see
Scott's tales as an obsession with a harmless fantasy, not as a
deliberate attempt to defraud. Over the course of several years of
annual visits, Johnson planned and had a mansion built near what was now
known as “Scotty’s Folly” so that his wife could spend the time there in
comfort.
Johnson’s mansion opened in 1920, and came to be seen as
the absolutely necessary place to be in order to be seen as traveling in
“high society.”
There, in the luxurious dining room over dinner, Scotty
would spin his fanciful tales to such guests as F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Orson Wells, Will Rogers, and hundreds of others who stayed at the
ranch, and this in turn added to the estate's popularity. Eventually
Scotty’s Castle became a much visited tourist attraction and a hotel,
and then a part of the National Monument at Death Valley and a National
Monument in its own right.
Johnson himself finally bought completely into the story,
and allowed Scotty to tell everyone that he built the two million dollar
home with profits from his gold mine. Johnson would then pass himself
off as Scotty’s banker, making the legend complete.
Today Scotty’s is a National Monument, registered in the Register of
Historic Places, and administered by the National Park Service. There,
in Death Valley National Monument, at the lowest point below sea level
in the Continent, the sky above Scotty’s Castle even today comes to
life, having the one of the darkest night skies in the United States.
There, standing at the edge of the Castle courtyard, a visitor can look
up and see the edge of the Milky Way galaxy with the naked eye and see
the breathtaking span of the galaxy from arced edge of the horizon to
the arced edge of the opposite horizon. There, the tale spun by Death
Valley Scotty and the tale spun by the night skies merge into a dream.
It is simply breathtaking.
Over 40 years ago, CNDG founder Chant Newall camped in Death Valley as a
young college student. He spent an afternoon at Scotty’s Castle, and
the impression remained with him through all the intervening time.
Faced with the challenge of building a unique and breathtaking
recreation in Second Life, the CNDG team has risen to the challenge and
recreated for you the majesty, grandeur and the humor of Scotty’s Castle
in Second Life.
Here, on the entire 65,000 square meters of a private
island, the team has created a build in which the detailing of the
original castle is preserved, down to the filigree of the gates and the
shadows cast by the desert sun. Painstakingly reproduced to a SL scale,
Scotty’s Castle in the CNDG Estate is well worth a long and leisurely
visit. There you can feel free to wander where Scotty and Johnson
hosted guests, visit the theater they had built for private plays and
movies, and enjoy the desert that they loved, even visit Scotty’s Folly,
the empty goldmine Scotty used to convince everyone that he was
“striking it rich”. Feel free to bring a horse or ride one of ours, to
walk around and to enjoy the surrounding landscape which has been
created to give the visitor a feeling of 'endless horizon' - rare in
Second Life. The level of detail and shadows give you a feeling of
truly 'being there'. Scotty's Castle is a majestically unique and
inspiring tableau filled with history and beauty. Come and spend some
time with us, and experience Scotty’s Castle in SL for yourself. |
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To Visit Scotty’s Castle in Second Life on the CNDG
Estate, navigate to
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scottys%20Castle/119/58/30/
For Information on Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley
National Monument, please see
http://www.nps.gov/archive/deva/
Scottys/Scottys_main.htm
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty's_Castle
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