When Jeff Jensen realized that he needed to insulate the walls and put a new roof on his circa-1941 home, he decided to tear it down and start over instead. And like any proud homeowner, Jensen wanted to make the home bigger and better and add some improvements. But this soft-spoken man who says, “I can’t draw or paint or sculpt. I just like to build things,” has taken that old saying, “A man’s home is his castle” to heart.

Jensen is a welder by trade and says the idea to start adding brick turretlike structures and generous amounts of ironwork to the outside of his home didn’t come to him in a middle-of-the-night dream or from a struck-on-the-head vision.

“I was out in the yard one day and needed a trellis for my ivy and gourds and other vines to grow on. So I built one. And then I built more.” Eventually came multiple brick and metal turrets, giant planters shaped like medieval cauldrons, a guard house and other castlelike features. “Inside it looks like a regular house,” says Jensen. “But outside, yeah, I guess you could say I’m the man who turned his house into a castle.”

Jeff Jensen’s Castle House is located in Spokane Valley, about 10 miles east of Spokane. He doesn’t mind if people come by to see his house and photograph it, but did not want his address listed here. To find the house take the Pines Exit from I-90, make a right turn on Pines Road, a left onto East Mission Avenue, and a right on North Vercler Road.

Photo courtesy of Brendan Genther.