Bannerman’s Island

Bannerman’s Island is a rugged, tree-covered rock topped with a crumbling castle and flanked by sunken towers that appear to belong to a drowned fortress. Adrift in the Hudson River a few miles south of Beacon, the castle is only viewable if you ride the Metro North train to Poughkeepsie. Even then you’re barely treated to a glimpse through infuriating trees as you’re whisked by at 60mph. After a few dozen trips, though, you’ll have a vague impression—it looks likes someone cobbled together a medieval castle from memory, brick, and cement, filling in forgotten details with whimsy. It was certainly the most incredible ruin I’d ever seen when I first rocketed past in the mid-90s, but the collapse of the Northern and Eastern walls in 2010 exposed its frail state.

In an effort to raise funds and fix the structure the Bannerman’s Castle Trust started tours to the island (also known as Pollepel Island) in 2004. Strangely, all this time I hadn’t realized that I could actually go there—it had always seemed unreachable—but the trip was prosaic enough. A flat-bottomed boat designed for shallow waters and equipped with airplane seats, potato chip sacks, and a warbly educational DVD shuttles us from Beacon to the island in about a half hour’s time. After climbing 70-some-odd steps from the pier (nothing to walk-up hardened New Yorkers), I stand face-to-face with the elusive building at last.

Not quite. The tour guide is commanding our attention. Very well…

We’re told that the island’s notoriety is ancient. Before white people made the Hudson their highway, native tribes thought the island was haunted. Later on, sailors used it for carousing with prostitutes. During the Revolutionary War, American forces sank a half-completed “chevaux de frise” here, which failed to prevent British ships from sailing up to the state capital at Kingston and burning it to the ground. In 1900 the place was bought by Francis Bannerman who used it to house his huge collection of military surplus items, which included nearly all of the munitions captured during the Spanish-American War. For his highly explosive stockpile Bannerman personally designed a Scottish castle, composed from scrap paper scribbles of various castles he’d seen around Europe. The design sounds precarious enough, but the structure was damaged in a powerful explosion in 1920, and a 1969 arson fire transformed it into a ruin. A live shell was found as late as 2005, after the grounds had been cleared for tours, shutting the island down for a year while it was swept for remaining explosives.

I sort of wish our well-meaning guide would stop talking, because it is truly beautiful here. We leave the gutted tower and walk up winding paths walled with dense underbrush. At the Southern tip Bannerman’s mansion seems carved out of a cliff face, an undulating stone building with gaping faces for windows. We tour garden paths the width of balance beams and descend a stony trail through gold-tinged trees to gaze at the river, with fanciful sunken turrets standing sentry over the rolling Hudson Highlands. It’s a city-block-sized world, where the only living things besides plants appear to be monarch butterflies and the occasional sliver of a train circling a far-off river bend.

Damn it, I want a private island.

Too soon we’re herded back to the boat, but I’m glad, because the autumn shadows are eerily long at 4 o’clock and I can’t fathom the spookiness of the place at night. I consider the trip to be $30 well spent and I hope they raise enough money to fix up the place; but I’m glad I got to visit while it is still the most amazing ruin I’ve ever seen.

Guided and self-guided tours to Bannerman’s Island depart from Beacon or Newburgh May-Oct. Reservations and sturdy walking shoes recommended. The ferry is reachable from New York City by taking Metro North from Grand Central to Beacon–it’s just a few steps away from the station. Tip: there’s porta potties on the island but you’re probably better off using the bathroom on the train or in the little police office as you leave the station and make a left on Beekman St.