Abandoned Bannerman Castle in New York’s Hudson River: Photo Tour | Invesloan.com

Today, you can reserve tours on the Bannerman Castle website.

The abandoned castle is visible from the Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson line. I took the train from Grand Central Terminal in NYC to the Manitou train station.

There, I met up with guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust, the group that oversees the castle’s preservation and maintenance.

Pollepel Island is only accessible by boat. Two guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust met me at the dock.

I crammed into the boat with the guides and a handful of volunteer gardeners who do landscaping work on Pollepel Island.

From the dock, we climbed 72 stairs to reach the island.

My guide explained that the castle’s towers are supported by external beams braced with steel. Each section weighs 250 pounds.

But even with this support, there’s still a risk that the walls could fall. That’s why all visitors must stay at least 100 feet away from the castle.

Luckily, observation decks are set up around the castle at picturesque vantage points.

Francis Bannerman VI, an arms dealer who lived in Brooklyn, bought Pollepel Island in 1900. He wanted a place outside the city to store an arsenal of munitions, according to The New York Times, so he built the fortress and an accompanying harbor.

Bannerman’s sons took over the business when he died in 1918.

This shattered the castle’s windows.

It eventually became part of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, according to the park’s website.

After that, Pollepel Island was deemed unsafe and declared off-limits by the State of New York.

The group raised money to restore the island; Caplan is its executive director.

Today, it serves as a theater, museum, and historical site.

The facade of the building also serves as the backdrop for the theater’s stage.

Modest exhibits explain the site’s history and the castle’s construction. Drawings and documents are framed on the building’s distressed walls.

The center also has a gift shop that sells art and T-shirts.

According to the Bannerman Castle Trust, much of the castle’s shell collapsed one night in December 2009. Then, just a month later, more walls fell during a winter storm.

From the water, we caught glimpses of other pieces of the abandoned fortress, including its deteriorated harbor.

The combination of medieval architecture and overgrown trees and foliage makes Bannerman Castle a place worth visiting up close.