The Man in the Weird Castle

It was just over three years ago, at a barn party near Rhinebeck, New York, when I first heard about the very wealthy, very horny man who lived in a castle he’d built himself.

The party was hosted by a journalist friend, and among the guests was the author Jon Ronson, who showed up around dinnertime accompanied by an entourage of beautiful 20somethings who actually, wholesomely, turned out to be his son and some friends. After we had been introduced—which is to say, after I cornered Ronson like a deranged fangirl to gush about how much I’d loved his last book—I asked what he was working on lately. His response was a bit hard to follow, because he was very excited: something about his son, a party, and a castle nestled in rural no-man’s-land in the uppermost eastern corner of Connecticut, where a madman was luring vulnerable young Zoomers in order to. . .

Well, this part was still unclear, and Ronson didn’t want to say much more. An absolutely spectacular story had fallen right into his lap; he was thrilled at the prospect of telling it, but also terrified that someone else might tell it first. When he left the party a couple hours later, he tapped me on the shoulder on his way out.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said, “about the castle.”