Califon’s Castle: A Magical Experience

The Califon Book Shop in Califon, New Jersey, is attracting holiday shoppers with a seven-foot, rotating castle in the store’s front window. Built from cardboard, twine, sticks, and fairy lights, the castle has been such a conversation starter that store owner Claire Boland might keep it in the window year round.

“Kids come in and stand open-mouthed for awhile,” said Boland, describing the reaction to the ornate castle that has winding staircases, pennants, and ribbons. “They want to touch it. It’s a little fragile, but I let them. How could I not let them? People have been taking pictures in front of it for their Christmas cards.”

Reaction to the castle has been so wonderful, Boland said, “I can’t decide if I’m going to leave it up for a while. Or have it be something magical that only comes out at Christmastime.”

The castle was created by Kathleen Thomas, Boland’s mother and a former sculptor.

Thomas told BTW that “the castle was inspired by memories of childhood family trips ‘downtown’ in Wichita, Kansas, in the ’40s to view the department store Christmas windows. In those days every store was in competition to have the most fantastic, animated, miniature display of settings and characters. We looked forward to these excursions every December and the magical visions would fill our dreams for weeks. This was a typical American holiday ritual in those days, and one not currently available to most children.”

Boland is proud of her very talented mother. “She would always do very creative things,” Boland said. “She used refurbish antique furniture, she silk-screened T-shirts, made things out of papier-mâché. And she used to make all our Halloween costumes for the school contests, but she had to stop because we’d win every year.”

This is Boland’s first holiday season as the owner of the Califon Book Shop. She bought it in July, but the bookstore has been in business for about 20 years. “I’d worked here for three years and always hoped I’d be able to buy it,” said Boland. Califon’s former owner, Lori Busby, still works at the store, but will soon move to Maine.

Although the bookstore’s Black Friday weekend wasn’t overwhelmingly busy and that was fine with Boland. “It’s very isolated here,” she explained. “There’s no traffic light, no police department. It’s a sweet little town, and that’s what I love about it.”

Califon Castle, which is featured in a YouTube video, will be lit for viewing each evening throughout the holidays until 10:00 p.m.