Connecticut actor’s 100-year-old castle gets renovations before opening for the season

Gillette Castle — that eccentric-looking mansion of jagged stones that gazes over the Connecticut River on the East Haddam-Lyme town line — opens to the public from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. Visitors to the house of “Sherlock Holmes” stage actor William Gillette will find some repairs made to restore the 103-year-old landmark to its original glory.

The first new addition visitors will see is the sign welcoming them to the castle. It features Gillette in silhouette, wearing Sherlock Holmes’ cap and smoking his pipe. Also, the Seth Thomas clock in the great room has been fixed and keeps time again.

The stone retaining wall surrounding the castle has been fixed, said Park Supervisor Jack Hine. “It was a dry-laid wall, with the earth retaining it. It pushed it down over 100 years,” Hine said. “It is now reinforced concrete, faced with the original stones.”

Also the conservatory adjacent to the river-facing terrace has been restored.

“Last year it was almost barren. It didn’t feel like it probably actually looked during Gillette’s time. It didn’t show the joy of a properly tended garden,” said Lynn Wilkinson, president of the Friends of Gillette Castle State Park.

Wilkinson said many garden-supply merchants in the area donated to the restoration project, to fill the conservatory with a variety of strong, healthy plants. A small pool in the room will be filled for visitors to toss coins in. The park collects the coins and displays many of them to show the countries that park visitors have come from.

In Gillette’s day, the castle had many esteemed visitors. “Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Calvin Coolidge, lots of others, they all came to visit him,” Wilkinson said.

Gillette, a descendant of Connecticut Colony founder Thomas Hooker, was born in Hartford in 1853. He grew up in Nook Farm, most famous as the neighborhood of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain. He pursued a stage career. Starting in 1899, with the permission of Sherlock Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gillette specialized in Holmes.

Over 1,300 performances in the course of 33 years as the fictional detective — originating Holmes’ now-legendary deerstalker cap, Inverness cape, curved pipe and magnifying glass — Gillette became one of the most famous and wealthy actors in the country and established the template for every Sherlock Holmes actor ever since.

It wasn’t just Gillette’s acting that made him successful, Wilkinson said. “He figured out that if he wrote, produced and starred in the plays, all the dollars would come to him,” she said. “He was the first authentic interpreter of Sherlock Holmes. It was a great mix of Holmes, a fascinating character, and Gillette, who had an amazing presence.”

Gillette designed the quirky castle himself. Construction began in 1914. He moved in in 1919. He called his home the “Seventh Sister Estate” in recognition of a series of hills in the area. The widower lived there alone, with his cats, until his death in 1937. The house and its 122 acres, which included a small railroad, was bequeathed to relatives.

In 1943, the property became a state park, administered collaboratively by the state and the Connecticut Forest and Park Association. It opened to the public in 1944. A little cottage on the property was home to Yukitaka Osaki, Gillette’s right-hand man, who lived there until his death in 1942. That building also is facing restoration in the future.

Gillette Castle, 67 River Road in East Haddam, is open for interior visitors from May 28 to Labor Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The last entry is at 3 p.m. Admission is $6, $2 ages 6 to 12, 5 and younger free. Only the first floor is ADA accessible, and only 12 people are allowed in every 15 minutes. The grounds around the castle are open daily year-round from 8 a.m. to sunset. gillettecastlefriends.org.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.