Quirky Pacifica castle reopens for tours
After being closed throughout most of the pandemic, a tucked-away castle often known only to Pacifica locals has opened to the public again, and visits to the 115-year-old palace are busier than ever.
On an unusually sunny Saturday afternoon in Pacifica, dozens of visitors traversed up a steep hill along Mirador Terrace to be buzzed into the gates of Sam’s Castle, the colossal, 22room medieval-style masterpiece that since the early 20th century has served not just as an architectural oddity, but also a living vessel of several dramatic eras in Bay Area history.
The towering structure is located just off Highway 1 on a cliff at the end of a suburban street, just one of the many eccentric details about its origin story. Traumatized by the 1906 earthquake and fire, Henry McCloskey — an attorney for the Ocean Shore Railroad — moved his family away from the city and decided to build a concrete fortress in Pacifica as a kind of safe house. McCloskey’s grandson is long-serving California politician Pete McCloskey.
The McCloskeys, who had three children, didn’t get to enjoy the castle long, as the expensive project had bankrupted the family and became impossible to maintain after Henry McCloskey died, said Deidra Crow, a volunteer docent who gives tours with her husband, Jerry Crow. In the castle, the couple are known by their aliases: Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey, and they dress the part.
Deidra, who was decked out in a Edwardian-era Royal Blue gown outfitted with black silk gloves and a faux crow hat, regaled the tour group — which had to be split in two because it was so large — with the many lives the castle has lived since the McCloskeys built it. It was next sold to Galen Hickok, who claimed to be a doctor and transformed the space into a recuperative building for “ladies who elected not to become mothers,” Deidra said.
Hickok ran the abortion clinic for years until a local sheriff noticed the “comings and goings” and raided the building. Hickok and eventually his son were arrested and sent to San Quentin State Prison. In the 1920s, it turned into a gamblers’ “party house” called Chateau LaFayette, where Prohibition-era Canadian whiskey was served and stored.
Deidra, a longtime volunteer at the castle, said there is one character she would like to check off her bucket list: to be a Chateau LaFayette girl.
The castle had many more transformations after its Prohibition days. The Eakins family, which next bought the property, hosted events for the Red Cross and eventually leased it to the Coast Guard to become a “coastie boardinghouse” during World War II. Even William Randolph Hearst got involved, pitching in to fund the extension of electricity into the castle for the Coast Guard when it ran out.
After a period of fly-by-night owners and neglect, Sam Mazza, a Sicilian painting contractor from San Francisco who was driving south and had consumed “more than a few gin fizzes,” bought the castle for $29,000 in 1959 as a palace to store the thousands of antiques he’d collected over the years until his death in 2002.
Now, the castle is filled with several pieces Mazza managed to salvage from now bygone San Francisco theaters.
The Sam Mazza Foundation, which was set up after his death, has continued to operate at the castle. The building has served as a meeting place for nonprofits, the Pacifica Historical Society and even the Miss Pacifica Local Pageant.
On tours, visitors get to marvel at the sheer quantity of ornate pieces from Mazza’s collection — with rooms showcasing the late painter’s swords, coats of arms, Oriental collectibles, perforated brass hangings, statues, paintings and even a throne.
“There was really no theme to Sam’s collection,” Mr. McCloskey, also known as Jerry Crow, said as he led a group of visitors around the castle’s Religious Room, a small space filled with ornate European paintings, candles, a Virgin Mary statue and, more recently, an object to honor the paranormal goings-on in the castle that some volunteers swear by.
“The crystal ball is new,”
Crow said, just before he led visitors into the Crocker Room, a bedroom-like area outfitted with the famed family’s bedroom set, a lavish vanity, and a crown, cape and scepter that reportedly belonged to actor Clark Gable.
“A good friend of mine used to think that (this) room had a presence in there,” Crow said. “She would get a strange feeling. … We’ll see if any of you are sensitive enough.”
If any of the visitors in the tour group felt a presence, they didn’t share it; most were too busy analyzing the curious expressions on the faces of the room’s many cherub statues, haunting every corner. A few visitors, two of whom are local ministers, took to Google Reverse Image Search to scope out which saints may have been reflected in some of the castle paintings, but according to the search engine, at least one wasn’t a known saint.
“We were pretty fascinated by the Religious Room,” said San Mateo resident Penny Nixon, a minister who works in affordable housing who was there with her wife, Annalee
McGurk, and a friend of theirs. “We particularly enjoyed the Virgin Mary and the crystal ball together. We thought that was pretty awesome.”
The three were recently on a drive in Pacifica when they happened to look up and see the castle, which they’d never noticed before, they said. They went as soon as they could book a reservation, and said they were struck by how many narratives of history were contained within the castle’s walls.
“It incorporates so many different eras of being, and you get a picture of the arc of history,” said Terri Echelbarger of Pacifica, a minister with the LGBTQaffirming Metropolitan Community Church. “I’m thankful it’s still here because I think history is easily forgotten, and this is living history.”
Relaxing after the tour in the building’s downstairs entertainment area, Deidra, 74, who has volunteered as a character actress and docent for the castle over the past eight years alongside her husband, evoked a similar sentiment.
“We really do feel like we’re stepping back in time and appreciating all of the effort that was put into renovating this extraordinary place,” said Deidra, who grew up in Pacifica and has been a longtime volunteer for the Pacifica Historical Society as well as local museums. “You can just see the whimsy and the joy that Sam had in his life.”
Deidra pointed out another one of her favorite pieces in the home: a porcelain centerpiece called “The Dresden Party” that dates back to 1870s-era Germany and shows 10 elaborate figurines in a state of grand revelry. Crow said that if the piece had been in perfect condition and not recently repaired, it might have been valued at up to $85,000.
But why it was her favorite had nothing to do with money.
“It’s a tour de force,” she said, pointing out the expressions on the figurines’ faces. “There’s a lot going on. They’re flirting across the table. They’ve got plans for later. It’s a 19th century booty call!”
“It incorporates so many different eras of being, and you get a picture of the arc of history.” Terri Echelbarger of Pacifica, a minister with the LGBTQ-affirming Metropolitan Community Church