It is a large timber frame structure built in the early 20th century as the home of John C. Osgood, founder of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in a simplified version of the Stick style.

At his mansion, Osgood, at the time one of the country's richest men, entertained guests like Theodore Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller and King Leopold of Belgium, who joined him on hunts.

A recent owner who tried to refurbish was indicted in a financial fraud scheme, and the Internal Revenue Service sold it to compensate victims in its first-ever online auction of seized real property.

[11] The main house sits at the east end of a cleared area that slopes up from the river, its west elevation visible from Highway 133.

The first floor is dominated by the English-style Great Hall, with 18-foot (5.5 m) ceilings and a large sandstone fireplace carved with Osgood's lion-based coat of arms and topped by a trophy elk mount.

[12] A special "peeping window" in the ceiling allowed Alma Osgood to see how female visitors were dressed so that she could adjust her own attire before receiving them.

The dining room reflects Russian tsarist tastes, with its hand-rubbed mahogany stained cherry red and covered with ruby velvet.

A French-styled music parlor, meant as the ladies' drawing room, has green silk damask walls, frescoed plaster ceiling and a Carrara marble fireplace topped with a diamond dust mirror.

[3] The history of the castle has three periods: Osgood's early trips to the Crystal Valley and plans for the estate, the realization of that dream, and the years since his death in which it has been used as a hotel.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, John C. Osgood first came to Colorado in 1882 to survey the state's coal resources for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

He intended to go into the mining business himself, and had his eye on the lands of the remote Crystal Valley, recently opened up to European settlement through a treaty with the Ute people, the Native American tribe that had long lived in the area.

Various schemes to build toll roads and railroads were launched over the next ten years, and some construction was undertaken, but not enough financing was available to complete them.

The combined firm had the assets to borrow against, but in the wake of the Panic of 1893 and its effect in Colorado, where many mining towns including nearby Aspen went into precipitous decline when the federal government stopped buying their silver, it was difficult to find banks willing to lend enough to pay for the railroad extension down the valley.

Architect Theodore Boal designed small wooden cottages for the coke oven workers with running water and electricity, then luxury items rare in most Colorado mining towns.

He had Boal design the mansion, which like the Redstone Inn to the north, then a dormitory for unmarried mine workers, used elements of the Tudor Revival style in addition to the Swiss Chalet forms.

[17] Additional outbuildings no longer extant include the southern gatehouse, similar to its northern counterpart with a rusticated foundation of local sandstone, Tudor arches, overhanging eaves, gabled dormer windows and half-timber detailing.

Its southern entry used the same Tudor styling as the other buildings on the estate, with a half-timbered gabled entrance, decorative vergeboards and slanted lintels.

J.P. Morgan,[9] Theodore Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller and King Leopold II of Belgium came to enjoy the hunting on the private preserves, where elk and other game were abundant and rare bighorn sheep roamed (one of the stories told about the history of the house holds that Roosevelt took pleasure in shooting for game while standing on the mansion's front porch.

After returning to the main house, guests shared dinner with their hosts, served on fine china with silver service, in the dining room.

Osgood started the Victor American Fuel Company, which became CFI's chief competitor, but spent less time in the Crystal Valley and more in New York.

After serving as a spokesperson for the mining companies during the labor disputes the following year which culminated in the Ludlow massacre, he did not return to the Crystal Valley until 1925.

Lucille continued with the resort plans, but the onset of the Great Depression made that unworkable as too few people had the money to spare on trips to such a remote location.

This revival gave the mansion's new owner, Frank Kistler, who also owned the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs, the impetus to tap into the house's potential as an all-season resort.

[14] While some of the remaining cottages and estate outbuildings did become second homes, the resort plans were not successful as the four ski areas at nearby Aspen were attracting all the skiers and contributing to that city's renaissance in the second half of the 20th century.

Harte died two months later and the IRS announced that it would hold an online auction of the castle in March 2005, the first time it had ever disposed of a seized piece of real property that way.

They were worried that a developer would buy it and demolish the castle, which they considered an important part of the community's history, to build expensive homes for the Aspen-area market.

A dejected fellow bidder who felt the IRS had not given prospective buyers enough time to do due diligence offered him an additional million to sell it to her, but he refused.

In the meantime, Dimitrius restored the plumbing and heating, relined the chimneys, put in a new sprinkler system and had the roofs and gutters replaced and the exterior stucco repaired.

As of 2011, he was awaiting approval from Pitkin County for a new sewage treatment system, needed if any sort of expanded resort operations were to resume or begin.