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Dane Castle began as a dream shared by Mike Mahalko and his wife Cathy Homer many years ago. Thirty years ago they exchanged Thai Fighting Swords as wedding presents to each other. The two began collecting medieval weapons and soon they realized they needed some place larger when the collection started overtaking their mobile home and also part of Mike's father's home. They decided that they wanted to share their knowledge and love of medieval armor, weapons and art with others rather than keeping it to themselves. Thus began the idea of building their own castle to house these items. Cathy says, "We wanted something unique, so instead of a building that looked like a castle, we'd build a castle."
After searching for several years, they finally found 12 acres of land in Strongstown, PA that was a good site for a castle. Mike and Cathy drew up the plans for what they wanted their castle to look like, then they found an architect to make it workable. But they had to find a bank to finance a castle, which was not an easy task, then they had to find someone to build it and stay within budget, and building a castle is not cheap.
Along with their savings, they finally found a bank to finance the castle, and Walter Lorek of Oakridge Construction in Salix, PA was eager to undertake the task of constructing a castle and to do it within the budget. On July 27, 2001 a medieval groundbreaking was held, and the ground was blessed by a priest.
Mike and Cathy were able to move into Dane Castle on September 11, 2002. This date was important to them because as Cathy once said, " So many people lost their lives and dreams on September 11, 2001, we wanted to honor them with our dream coming true."
Eventually, they hope to add a barn with 2 Scottish Highland cattle and horses; a jousting field; an archery field from the battlements; a warrior's course through the woods; outer walls for the castle and hopefully more towers.
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