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Old Posted Nov 30, 2010, 11:48 PM
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Pyrenees Castle, Alhambra, Ca

Atop a small hill surrounded by a 1920s and 30s working class neighborhood, sits the Pyreness Castle. Built in 1926 for Sylvester Dupuy, the castle was designed and built to be similar to a chateux in France he admired as a child.

Here is an image of the Pyrenees castle shortly after completion, just before the neighborhood below began to fill in:

Source: zillow, city of alhambra, http://www.zillow.com/blog/files/200...me-orignal.jpg

This City of Alhambra link gives the interesting history of the castle, with an exerpt below:
Quote:
On a hilltop, overlooking southwest Alhambra, sits a fabulous castle.

The dense walls of the Pyrenees Castle embrace much history. In 1926, Sylvester Dupuy's dream of building a castle had come true. The Pyrenees Castle was the culmination of his childhod dream to build a replica of a beautiful chateau he had admired when growing up in Southern France.
...
Dupuy's $250,000 vision was built of concrete and steel. The castle's walls were 3-feet thick at the foundation and 1-foot wide at the eaves. It had 10 bedrooms, eight fully tiled bathrooms with Italian marble floors, a game room, a breakfast room, an office, dens, service and utility rooms, a large basement, an extensive balcony, covered patios and a large wine cellar in which the Dupuy family made its own wine.

Magnificent chandeliers, crystal sconces, gorgeous wood paneling, beautiful hardwood floors, a marbled center hall and a courtyard with a huge water fountain embellished the palace. The 3-acre property also included tennis courts, playgrounds for children and towers guarding its strategic corners.
...
Over the years, the castle has had several owners, sheltered many residents and has been the source of fantastic legends. One tale told of a wealthy motor magnate who never permitted himself to be seen entering or leaving the building. "Eastern gangsters," secret elevators and passwords were the fodder for other tales....
Of a slightly more famous and recent note, on February 3, 2003, current owner of the castle Phil Spector shot and killed actress Lana Clarkson in the castle. But everyone knows about that.

My mother grew up a couple streets down from the Pyrenees Castle in Alhambra (back in the 1950s). She recently took me by her old house and told me stories of her childhood memories of "the castle", which to her and her friends as kids was haunted. It's very heavily wooded, gated, and walled and currently it is hard to see the place from the streets.

Here are a couple bird's eye pictures of the castle (sorry for the skewed picture, I was including my mom's old house in the picture (which is the top left house in the first picture and the bottom right house in the second picture)):




Sources: Bing birds' eye
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