This week’s Zillow monstrosity comes courtesy of Rebecca Makkai, who shared some truly bizarre photos of a massive house in Woodstock, Connecticut that was built by millionaire castle afficionado and alleged camel -killer Christopher Mark, who apparently comes from a long line of steel tycoons. If you also like castles, but you think that the ones at Disney World aren’t fake-looking enough, then this is for you — and the 20,000-square-foot behemoth with 9 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces, and its own moat is just $35 million.
Said the Daily Mail when the castle went up for sale in 2014 for $45 million: “Eccentric millionaire Christopher Mark is unloading his property, which he began building in 2001, and was only completed in 2008, just three years after he made headlines for reportedly kicking out girlfriend Marina Isakova and the couple’s child from the lush digs.” Connecticut magazine said that during Mark’s divorce from his wife, both sides tried to make the other out to be responsible for the death of a camel that was kept as part of a petting zoo/wild animal operation:
The animals on the castle property also came up in the case. Mark has long run a nonprofit refuge for exotic animals called Wilderness Kingdom, Inc. Since 2004, the property has been licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a traveling zoo. When a camel died in 2010, both Mark and Galt alleged the other was neglectful. In a motion filed on June 25, 2010, Galt claimed “the animals are not being properly taken care of” and “a camel on the property has recently died.”vIn an email to Galt written on July 3, 2010, Mark countered that “when you sent the workers home and animals were not fed for 4 days, the camel lost a lot of weight since and died last week.”
