Building Castles, Books, and a Website

by Trent Stephens
(Pocatello, Idaho)

The Castle Builder's Handbook

Genre: Non fiction history and art

I have loved to draw and build castles and medieval armies from the time I was very young. I remember sitting in school drawing pictures of knights jousting when I was supposed to be studying spelling - now I live by my computer spell check. When I was in the sixth grade our teacher told the class we were going to build a castle the next Monday. I was so excited I could hardly sleep all weekend. When I came to school Monday I discovered that the castle-building kit was a card board box and some scissors. I was sorely disappointed. I knew there must be more to castle building than that, but I wasn't sure what, or where to begin. Soon I was diverted into building elaborate old west stockades in my yard. Then I was further diverted by my interests in biology, which I pursued to a PhD in Anatomy.

I didn't get back to castles again until my oldest son was five years old. I was a student and we had very little money, so I decided to build most of our children's Christmas gifts. In the case of my oldest son, that was a very elaborate castle for his fifth Christmas. I was so excited by the process of building that castle that I just kept building - more and more castles. That was about three hundred castles ago.

When I graduated from being a father to a grandfather, my daughters warned me about the size of their homes and told me I had to limit the size of castles I built for my grandchildren. That open up a whole new challenge to me - how to build a modular castle that could be taken apart and put together easily. I developed a castle block set which elevated toy castle building for me to a whole new level. One year I was displaying some of my block castles at a local Christmas show and a fellow who creates websites saw my creations. He convinced me that I needed to get my ideas onto the internet. So I started drawing plans for the various castle models I had developed and then many more.

I put my drawings of plans and photos of my castles onto the website he created for me: buildmodelcastles.com. I also combined many of my ideas into a book: The Castle Builder's Handbook, which I self publish and which is available on my website. I have since started another book: The Medieval Town Builder's Handbook, which presents several card stock medieval buildings to accompany my castles. My dream, which I am still working on, is to help all sixth graders, and anyone else interested in castles, realize that model and toy castles are far more than a card board box and pair of scissors.

Visit Build Model Castles.