National Park Seminary, Castle, Ravine in northeast part of campus, Silver Spring, Montgomery County, MD

Significance: The castle is one of the NPS clubhouses. The fanciful, medieval fortress for the Pi Beta Nu sorority counterbalanced the symmetrical architectural forms, such as the villa and the Colonial House, in this section of the campus. It helped fuse this area with the more informal styles on the main campus. The fairytale-like castle with crenelated tower and Gothic windows is reminiscent of garden follies common in English gardens in the eighteenth century and revived in American suburban and garden architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Gothic Revival style became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, in part, as a reaction against the vast transformations caused by industrialization.
Survey number: HABS MD-1109-I
Building/structure dates: 1904 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: before 1922 Subsequent Work