The Castle was built in 1896 by John Welles Paine (1832 - 1913), a wealthy financier and attorney, as his personal residence. A masterpiece of the Gilded Age, at the time of its completion at a cost of $800,000 (almost $25 million in 2020 dollars) it was considered the "Grandest House in Troy," which was itself at the time one of the wealthiest cities in the United States.
Paine was heir to a large fortune and showed skill in business that allowed him to expand upon that fortune. He married Julia Dickinson Tayloe, member of a prominent Washington, D.C. family, whose own wealth was quite substantial. 20 years after Julia's death in 1872 due to complications from childbirth, he decided to build a new family home on 2nd Street, site of the original Paine family homestead, settled by his grandfather in 1800. He retained the services of prolific architect Thomas Franklin Schneider, as sole designer of the property.
Paine modeled the rooms of his house on those he had seen in other grand homes around the world, giving The Castle a distinctly eclectic style. Each room is different from the others, yet all of them seem to fit together seamlessly, a testament to the skill of T.F. Schneider and the hundreds of craftsman and artisans who worked on the house.
The exterior is made from rough cut Indiana limestone, and the roof is crowned with Spanish tile. The interior features intricately carved cherry and mahogany woodwork, much of which is gilded. There are 6 bedrooms, a billiards room, 16 fireplaces, 15 stained glass windows, silk wall
