The Coordinates series celebrates lesser-known locales worth visiting across the state.

Perchance a man’s home really is his castle. In the mid-nineties, Mike Newman, a native of Bellville (about an hour northwest of Houston), decided to build a house on twenty acres of sylvan pasture he’d bought outside the city. A friend floated the idea of a castle, and a few napkin sketches and about ten years later, the bakery owner had completed Newman’s Castle, a 3,400-square-foot medieval-style manor complete with bell tower, drawbridge, and a modification or two, such as a turret designed to fit a large, round bathtub. Public interest (and interlopers) prompted him to open his home for tours in 2004, though he didn’t fully take up residence until two years later. After Newman died, in 202

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