photo #1768900

The ruins of Madame Sherri’s Castle in W. Chesterfield, New Hampshire.Sherri was born in Paris in 1878. Later in life, she wound up meeting Anthony Macalusco (aka Andre Riela), who she would marry. Andre came from a distinguished Italian family and was the son of a diplomat. He was training to become one himself until he abandoned his studies after meeting Sherri, who was seven years his senior and worked as a dancer at a nightclub.After tying the knot, the two moved to New York City and set up a millinery, or hatmaking business, called "Andre-Sherri" in 1915. It was there that they hired Charles LeMaire, who became a famous Broadway costume designer -- even winning an Academy Award for the film "All About Eve" in 1950. The movie starred Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe.In 1924, while America was still under the grip of Prohibition, Andre consumed some bathtub gin, or alcohol made in a poor and amateur fashion. There is evidence to suggest the concoction made him go blind and insane, causing him to be admitted to Manhattan State Hospital and die five months later. But Stanway said Wayne Carhart, the former head of the Brattleboro Historical Society, maintains that he died of syphilis.Years later, the widowed Sherri began attending the wild parties of West Chesterfield’s Jack Henderson. Sherri fell in love with the area and in 1929 purchased the old Alphonse Furlone house and 600 acres going up the side of Rattlesnake Hill across the road.Stanway said Sherri then came up with the weird idea of building a castle on the lot."There were no blueprints or anything," Stanway said in a telephone interview. "She just winged it. It completely confused locals."The castle quickly became notorious for parties in the 1930s, the author said, and Sherri and her friends loved cruising around the area in her 1927 cream-colored Packard.Stanway believes he was able to confirm the rumor that Sherri used to walk around wearing a fur coat with nothing underneath it. It is also possible that she had a monkey on her shoulder during strolls. Stanway said a dear friend of Sherri’s eventually buried the fur coat, which had been tattered and torn, in his backyard.After World War II, she became increasingly dependent on her neighbors for basic necessities," Stanway said, adding that her beloved castle started to get vandalized on a regular basis. Sherri became a ward of Brattleboro and the castle burned to the ground in 1962.She soon became senile and lived at Maple Rest Nursing Home in Brattleboro, where she died in October 1965.A woman named Ann Stokes grew fond of Sherri’s castle and bought the land around it -- the deal was finalized the day of Sherri’s death. She maintained it until 1998, when she sold it to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. It is now known as Madame Sherri Forest.Stanway, who started pursuing his project in mid-April, he was interested in dispelling perhaps the harshest rumor surrounding Sherri’s life -- the one about her operating a whorehouse on the site. While he was unable to confirm one way or the other, he said it is very unlikely that it is true. It was probably the result of what he called "linguistic confusion."