‘One heck of a building,’ castle’s for sale or rent

To buy, the price is $1.65 million. To rent, it’s almost $6,000 a month.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Castle for rent. Downtown view. Moat not included.

That’s the Schwartz Castle, a German Village landmark for more than a century and an enduring subject of gossip, ghost stories and speculation. After an expensive yearlong update — its second in the past 25 years — the castle is up for rent or sale.

The condominium on the top two floors is, anyway.

The 5,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home with a penthouse view of the Columbus skyline is available to any prince or commoner who can pony up the $5,900 monthly rent or the $1.65 million asking price.

The bottom two floors — another 5,000 square feet — have been converted into offices.

“I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like this,” said Mike Ferris of Mike Ferris Properties, which owns the building and did the most recent renovation. “It’s one heck of a building.”

Amenities include a ballroom, a private elevator and a movie theater/media room. The unusual pad also includes antique doors, an intercom system and original mosaic-tile floors.

Although the real-estate market has been soft, “We’ve had some interest. Some people have compared it to Miranova, but I don’t think there’s any comparison,” Ferris said, citing the castle’s history, architecture and size.

Interest in the castle has been strong for years, said Katharine Moore, executive director of the German Village Society.

“Because we have an archive system that includes every building in German Village, we invite people to pore through that folder — and we’re amazed at the number of people who take us up on that offer,” she said.

The curious also have been taking online tours at www.metro-rentals.com/SchwartzCastlePenthouse.

Stories about the castle’s history often conflict. Some reports say the original owner’s name was Frederich Wilhelm Schwartz; others refer to him as William Schwartz. A few spell his last name Schwarz.

All agree that Schwartz was a successful pharmacist. Most stories say he built his red brick home in the late 1800s as a wedding gift for his fiancée in Germany.

When the woman stood him up, the story goes, Schwartz became a recluse, never marrying, growing his hair long, sunbathing in the nude — often on the roof of the turret — going barefoot and indulging in occult rituals.

“Who knows if it’s true?” Ferris said. “But everybody knows about him sunbathing.”

The home became the Columbus Maternity Hospital three years after Schwartz’s death in 1914. Through the years, the building deteriorated along with the neighborhood.

By the mid-1950s, the building had become a seedy rooming house where two renters were slain within months of each other.

By the 1960s, the building was a vacant hulk that had been condemned by the city.

Polaris developers Robert Echele and Robert Gease took over the home in the 1970s and did the first renovation, completed in the late ’80s. Afterward, numerous private and public groups made the home a stop on tours, most notably the German Village Haus und Garten Tour.

“I was told that ... this was the most-toured building in Columbus,” Ferris said.

As a boy, Ferris delivered newspapers in German Village and frequently walked past the then-empty building.

“I’m sure some of my friends threw rocks at the windows; of course, I never did,” he said, laughing. “When I got a phone call that it was up for sale [in 2003], I said, ‘Great!’ My office was just down the street. I’ve done a lot of renovations in German Village, and I’ve always loved developing here.”

Although the Schwartz Castle has no moat, it has been the subject of ghost stories. Legends say that people who have lived there have found strange cold spots and heard footsteps on the stairs. A skeleton was rumored to be locked in the carriage house in back. And Schwartz’s ghost is purported to appear in one of the second-story windows.

Ferris, whose offices are in the first floor and basement, laughs about the stories — “I work late at night, and I’ve never seen or heard anything.” — but does acknowledge that the building has a castle’s requisite quirks, such as the wrought-iron stepladder to the roof of the turret where Schwartz used to sunbathe.

In addition, Schwartz equipped his castle with a secret room.

“It’s a castle,” Ferris said. “You’ve got to have a secret room.”