'The Castle Cottage' overlooking Lake George!

Highlands Castle was born from a father's promise to his young son...
“Someday I’ll build a house where we both will live... Someday Jason, I will build you a castle."

After a divorce in 1978, my 3-year-old son would likely have never remembered these words. The promise had more to do with a desire to build a better life than an actual castle. It would be almost 5-years before the ideal property presented itself, a mountaintop in Bolton Landing, NY.

When my son was a teenager, I said "Jason, I promised that I would build you a castle, I didn't say you wouldn't be helping me!"... So he joined in the stonework, and naturally resourceful, he recruited his football teammates to lend some muscle over the summer months and they took great pride in their accomplishments while working together again as a team.

Over the past 40 years, the property would evolve into what it is today... a series of three castles:
1) Highlands Castle
2) Highlands Castle Cottage
3) Highlands Castle Gatehouse

We hope you'll share our story and that you'll have an opportunity to visit us one day!

Kind Regards,
John A. Lavender II and Yvonne Lavender,
owners of Highlands Castle in Bolton Landing, NY

'Ex Malo Bonum.' Out of bad comes good.
Oftentimes, good things come out of bad experiences. In 2010 we began sharing our property with others. This was the good that came out of bad. Two years earlier, a fall from the roof resulted in a shattered right ankle and 4-operations. What emerged from a serious accident was an awareness of how fragile life is. It was time to reinvent myself and start a new chapter.

Although I never had any plan or intention to rent our home, doing so has given me an opportunity to meet some wonderful and interesting people from all over the world. And I would find something we all need, a sense of purpose.

When I think back to my words "Someday I will build you a castle", there was always a plan and a purpose. I believe it wasn't just my plan.