Brick by Brick, a Weekend Warrior Builds a Medieval Retirement Home

"SNELLING, Calif. — Most days, the talk here among the farmers and almond growers along this stretch of two-lane blacktop 18 miles from the nearest on-ramp concerns heat units — as hot summer days are known — and the hull split that signals the approach of almond harvest season.

A suit of armor at the entrance to the castle, which also has a moat. Diane Noz and her granddaughter Emma Huber are at right.
But there is also the Kasteel Noz, the turreted brick castle with two towers and a moat that Casper Noz, a 51-year-old contractor who was born in the Netherlands, has been obsessively building by himself almost completely by hand on weekends for the past 20 years."

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