Haunted Loveland Castle: The Scout Leader Who Built It Alone

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated November 1, 2026 · How we verify

Most ghost stories attach themselves to buildings that were already old. The haunted Loveland Castle is the rare exception: a medieval-style keep on the banks of the Little Miami River in Ohio that one man started piling up in 1927 and kept working on for more than fifty years. Chateau Laroche is now a museum, and the tales of it being haunted come, more often than not, from the volunteers who look after it.

Quick Facts on Chateau Laroche

Where: on the banks of the Little Miami River, north of Loveland, Ohio.

Also called: the Loveland Castle.

Begun: 1927, by Harry D. Andrews.

Style: built in the style of a medieval castle.

Now: a museum, owned and maintained by the Knights of the Golden Trail.

Harry Andrews and the Newspaper Subscription Plots

Andrews was a Boy Scout troop leader, a World War I veteran and a medievalist, and the castle was his own project rather than any institution’s. The land itself came from an unlikely source: promotional plots obtained by paying for one-year subscriptions to The Cincinnati Enquirer.

The name came from France. Andrews called the place after a military hospital in the Chateau de la Roche, French for “Rock Castle,” in the southwest of the country, a 19th-century chateau built by the Russian Count Grigory Kushelev-Bezborodko. Andrews had stayed there while stationed overseas during the First World War, and he carried the idea home with him.

River Stones, Then Milk Cartons Full of Cement

The construction method explains why the work took so long. Andrews pulled stones out of the nearby Little Miami River by hand, and when that supply ran out he simply made his own, molding bricks from cement poured into quart milk cartons. He kept at the castle for over fifty years.

He died in 1981 and left the castle to his Boy Scout troop, the Knights of the Golden Trail. The KOGT have carried out extensive upgrades and renovations since, and the building is now largely complete.

The East Tower, the Chapel Walls and the Gardens

The East tower holds a short video presentation on Andrews and his effort to finish what he had started. Upstairs, the chapel walls are set with stones Andrews brought back from his travels around the world, along with others that friends and followers mailed to him from abroad. More recent additions include an expansion of the outside gardens and a greenhouse.

What the Volunteer Knights Report

Here is where the record thins out, and it is worth being plain about that. Tales of the castle being haunted have been reported over the years, and they frequently originate with Chateau Laroche’s own volunteer knights rather than with visitors or with any documented incident. No specific death, accident or tragedy at the site underpins them in the available record.

That does not make the stories uninteresting. A castle assembled by one man over half a century, out of river rock and homemade brick, is exactly the sort of place that accumulates lore from the people who spend the most hours inside it. But anyone arriving expecting a well-attested haunting with names and dates attached should know that what exists is a reputation, not a case file.

Visiting the Castle North of Loveland

Chateau Laroche operates as a museum, so the interior is open to the public rather than glimpsed over a wall. The setting on the Little Miami River north of Loveland is part of the appeal, as are the gardens and greenhouse added in recent years. Check current opening times and admission with the castle directly before traveling, and if you want the ghost stories, the volunteer knights on site are the people who tell them.

Address: Loveland, Ohio

See Chateau Laroche for Yourself

Sources

• Loveland Castle
• 120 Waterfall Hikes Around Cincinnati Ohio
• Harry Andrews and the Legend of Chateau La Roche
• Chateau Laroche, Loveland Castle
• Wikipedia: Chateau Laroche

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