Why This Massive Apartment Building Looks Like a Disney Castle

Grandville — If you've ever driven along I-196 through the Grand Rapids area, chances are you've seen what looks like a bootleg Cinderella's Castle peeking through the trees and thought, "What the hell is that?"

Believe it or not, it's actually an apartment building!

It's called the Grand Castle Apartments, and people absolutely hate them.

Over the years the castle has repeatedly been the butt of jokes on social media, and the biggest issue seems to be simply that everyone thinks the place is hideous.

People have ruthlessly ripped on the ugly concrete walls and kitschy castle design. "Gaudy," "gimmicky," "misguided" and "ill-conceived" are just some of the adjectives that have been used to describe the structure, and one West Michigan architect famously called it "Brutal Disney by the freeway," which I think hits the nail right on the head.

The person responsible for this wild idea to build a castle in Grandville was a man named Roger Lucas. He was a longtime West Michigan developer who had been building and managing apartments in the area for decades. He had traveled through Europe with his family numerous times and always had a particular fascination with castles. His favorite was always the famous Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany and in 2016, he decided to build a castle of his own inspired by it.

In 2015, Lucas submitted plans to the City of Grandville for a massive castle-themed apartment complex on a 23-acre property near I-196 and 28th Street. The plan was originally to have the apartments finished by the following summer, but building a giant castle in suburban Michigan quickly proved to be a little more complicated than Lucas expected.

The European-style windows he wanted had to meet American building codes, wiring the massive building with fire alarms was another huge challenge, and the project fell months behind schedule. By the time it was all said and done, the whole project had cost more than $50 million and took over two years to complete.

By 2018, the Grand Castle Apartments were finally open and ready for residents. The finished structure stood 15 stories and 198 feet tall, which is just two feet shy of the height that requires additional approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

But people thinking the place was ugly wasn't the only controversy surrounding the project. There were some safety issues.

Michigan's workplace safety agency inspected the construction site several times. During two inspections in 2016, regulators reported nine serious violations and three less-serious violations involving contractors working on the project. Those included missing guardrails on scaffolding, uncovered floor holes and a lack of fall protection.

But safety issues and hate aside, the castle finally opened. And while plenty of people were making fun of it, supposedly, plenty of people wanted to live there too.

Before even opening, Lucas had claimed 100 people were preparing to move in and another 350 were on a waiting list. He didn't seem too bothered by all the hate either.

"If you don't like it, it's ok," he said shortly before the Grand Castle opened. "The reality is some will, some won't."

He was pretty confident that there were plenty of people who would like it. To Lucas, the fact that the Grand Castle was so different was kind of the entire point. After more than three decades in the apartment business, he'd seen plenty of normal apartment buildings and wanted to build something people would actually remember.

"I always thought when I saw castles in Europe, it would be fun to stay there," he said in 2018. "Now, people can."

Whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit living in a castle would be pretty cool. And you definitely have to respect how hard they committed to the bit.

This isn't just a regular apartment building that looks like a castle from the outside. The entire property is designed to make you feel like royalty. There are towers, turrets, suits of armor and even stone sentinels and guard lions keeping watch from the roof.

Inside, there's a massive library with a double-curved staircase and windows overlooking Grandville. Some of the apartments are particularly lavish too, including one multi-story penthouse with roughly 10,000 square feet of space and its own ballroom.

Residents get all the regular luxury-apartment stuff too. The property has a pool, fitness center, dog park, walking trails and private access to the lake right outside.

Roger Lucas died unexpectedly in October 2021 after suffering a heart attack. He was still the owner of the Grand Castle at the time, and in obituaries after his death, the giant building he spent years bringing to life was described as his "passion project."

Today, the Grand Castle is still standing right alongside I-196 and is still exactly as ridiculous and impossible to miss as it was when it opened. There are more than 500 apartment units inside, ranging all the way from studios to massive multi-level penthouses, and rent for the regular apartments generally ranges from around $1,100 to $2,300 a month.

Nearly a decade after it was first built, people still can't seem to agree on whether it's incredibly cool or incredibly ugly. But either way, if you're looking for a new place in the Grand Rapids area and you've always dreamed of being a princess, I think I found the perfect apartment for you.