A Florida Castle Clad in Printing Plates
Howard Solomon used discarded metal to cover a home and workshop in rural Ona, then filled it with sculptures made from scrap.
The silvery walls of Solomon’s Castle are covered with used aluminum printing plates. They once helped put ink on paper. Howard Solomon bought the discarded plates from a local newspaper and fastened them to a building with towers, battlements, and stained glass.
Building above the Wet Ground
Solomon bought land beside Horse Creek in rural Florida in 1970. Summer rain revealed how much of the property could become wet. He placed his workshop on higher ground and expanded upward, gradually giving it the form of a castle.
Construction began in the early 1970s. The building became a studio, a home, and a place to show the objects he made. Its metal cladding produced a bright exterior, while the shape allowed him to add rooms and towers as work continued.
The plates were one part of a much larger supply of discarded material. Solomon used bicycle chains, oil drums, car parts, coat hangers, and leftover wood and metal in his sculptures. Recognizable pieces remained visible in the finished work, so a visitor could often see both the figure and the scraps that formed it.
A Ship beside the Castle
Solomon also built stained-glass windows and filled the interior with hundreds of works. The tours became performances of their own, with the artist explaining his constructions through a script full of puns.
In the 1990s, he added a large wooden ship beside the castle. The 65-foot structure resembled a Spanish galleon and became the Boat in the Moat restaurant. It was another building assembled from salvaged material, this time in the shape of a vessel.
Solomon lived and worked here until his death in 2016. The used printing plates remain visible on the castle’s exterior, overlapping across walls and towers built around his workshop.
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Sources & photograph
Adapted from the Hidden Here story catalog. Explore the historical records behind this story.
