Madame Sherri's Castle, Chesterfield: The Haunted Staircase to Nowhere

Madame Sherri’s Castle is not really a castle, and it is not really standing. What you find, a short walk from a parking lot on Gulf Road in West Chesterfield, is a granite foundation, a big empty fireplace, a few fieldstone pillars and a grand curving staircase that rises over three stone arches and ends in thin air. Sugar maples have grown up through the old rooms, and in October the whole place is carpeted in red and gold leaves. It is one of the most photographed ruins in New England.

The woman who built it was Antoinette Sherri, a Paris-born dancer and seamstress who became a Broadway costume designer, threw famous parties here for her theater friends, and died poor in Brattleboro in 1965. Local people have been telling stories about her ever since, and in recent decades those stories have turned into ghost stories. This guide covers what is known about Madame Sherri and her house, what visitors report, what the records say, and how to visit the ruins safely.

History of Madame Sherri and her castle

Madame Sherri was born Antoinette Bramare in Paris in 1878 and worked there as a seamstress and dancer. In 1911 she sailed to New York with the man who became her husband, recorded variously as Anthony Macaluso and Andre Riela; the couple took the name Sherri, for reasons nobody has explained. Andre worked in vaudeville, while Antoinette made her name designing costumes for Broadway revues, including the Ziegfeld Follies. Andre went blind and insane, possibly from bad bathtub gin, disease or both, and died in 1924.

Around 1929 she came up to the Connecticut River valley for a party at silent film actor Jack Henderson’s house on Gulf Road and fell for the area. She bought a farmhouse and roughly 600 acres on the slopes of Wantastiquet Mountain, across the river from Brattleboro, Vermont, and around 1930 built a French-style chateau with an ornate interior, landscaped gardens and the Roman-arched stone stairway that survives today. Much of the money, Atlas Obscura notes, came from gifts from her former assistant Charles LeMaire, who later won an Academy Award for costume design.

Oddly, she did not live in it. She slept in the farmhouse across the road, and the chateau was for entertaining: summer weekends of guests up from New York and lavish parties until the money ran out. Neighbors gossiped about her furs and her visitors; some called her a madam, and a story that she once walked down Brattleboro’s Main Street in a fur coat with nothing underneath has never been confirmed. Boston.com points out that people who knew her also remembered her living quite simply.

The money ran out. By the late 1950s Madame Sherri was nearly broke and had joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quechee, Vermont. When she came back to Chesterfield in 1959 she found the chateau broken into, vandalized and stripped of its antiques, and she left for good. The empty house burned in 1962. She spent her last years relying on friends and, in the end, as a ward of the state, and died in Brattleboro in 1965.

Shortly before or just after her death, local artist Ann Stokes bought the land, and in the late 1960s and 1970s she hosted concerts and parties among the ruins. In 1976 Stokes gave a conservation easement on 488 acres to the Forest Society, in 1991 she gave the land outright, and in 2005 she added the 25.5 acres holding the castle ruins, the parking lot and the trailhead. The loop trail that passes the ruins is named for her. In July 2021 the top of the famous staircase collapsed, and the area is now roped off.

The ghost stories

The lady on the stairs

The best-known story is simple: visitors say they have seen a woman standing at the top of the grand staircase, the part some people call the stairway to heaven, looking out over the ruins as if waiting for her guests to arrive. She is always said to be Madame Sherri. Some tellings have her in a fur coat; others in an evening gown.

No named witness or dated sighting stands behind the story. New England Today’s writer, who went looking, heard and saw nothing at all. The Chesterfield Historical Society lists the ruins among its haunted places but is frank that its summary rests partly on an internet AI answer, and it suggests Madame Sherri’s theatrical life has probably colored the tales.

Music and laughter in the trees

The second story is about sound. People walking the Ann Stokes Loop on quiet evenings say they hear faint music, glasses and laughter drifting from the direction of the ruins, as if one of her parties were still going on. It is a lovely idea, and it fits the place, but it is also exactly the kind of story a party house in the woods would attract.

Strange noises and a watched feeling

More general reports, collected by sites such as Atlas Obscura and the Chesterfield Historical Society, describe strange noises, shapes glimpsed among the trees and a heavy feeling of being watched near the foundation. These are the most common experiences, and the hardest to separate from the setting: a ruined house deep in a forest is not a place where anyone feels quite alone.

The deathbed sale

One more piece of local lore says Madame Sherri sold her land to Ann Stokes on the day she died, so that she could stay connected to it. The Historical Society presents this as an inference rather than a fact, and Boston.com says only that Stokes bought the property shortly before Sherri’s death. It is the kind of detail that turns a sad end into a ghost story.

Where to look

• The grand staircase: the curving granite stair over three arches where the lady is said to stand. Its top section fell in 2021, so admire it from the ground.
• The arches: the three stone arches under the stair, the most photographed part of the ruins, best in autumn light.
• The fireplace and chimney: the big empty hearth and freestanding chimney at the upper level, where the parties once gathered.
• The foundation and Indian Pond: the stone cellar walls and the Ann Stokes Loop, which crosses a footbridge and passes Indian Pond, where walkers tell of music on still evenings.

Visiting Madame Sherri's Castle

The ruins are in the Madame Sherri Forest on Gulf Road in West Chesterfield, a few minutes from the Route 9 bridge to Brattleboro, Vermont. From New Hampshire, take Route 9 to Route 63 South, turn right on Stage Road and bear left onto Castle Road, which joins Gulf Road; the signed lot is on the left. From Vermont, cross into New Hampshire on Route 9 and turn right onto Gulf Road just after the Riverside Store; the lot is on the right.

A small parking lot has an information kiosk with a trail map and photos of Madame Sherri and her house. The ruins are only about 100 feet up a short side path. The Ann Stokes Loop continues for about two miles past Indian Pond, and a spur climbs to the top of Wantastiquet Mountain for views over the Connecticut River valley. The trails are unmarked in places, so bring a map.

The forest is free and open to the public, but there are rules: carry out all trash, do not disturb plants, animals or cultural features, and no camping, fires, bikes or motor vehicles. Winter access is not guaranteed. Above all, do not climb the staircase or walk on the walls: people climbing them is what has made them fragile, and part of the stair has already collapsed.

• Visiting Free, open woodland reached from a small parking lot on Gulf Road; no camping or fires, and winter access is not guaranteed
• Ghost hunting A public conservation forest: respect the ruins, which are fragile and roped off

Tips for your visit

• Go in early to mid October for the foliage; the ruins are at their most atmospheric under red maples.
• Arrive early on autumn weekends: the lot is small and fills quickly.
• Keep off the stairs and walls, which are roped off since the 2021 collapse.
• Visit in daylight and allow an hour for the loop trail to Indian Pond.
• Combine it with Brattleboro, Vermont, five minutes away across the river.

More haunted places nearby

• Haunted places in Vermont: Brattleboro, just across the river, has the Retreat Trails tower and more Vermont ghost stories
• Amos J. Blake House and more: the Fitzwilliam museum with eleven ghosts is about 30 miles east
• Haunted hotels in New Hampshire: where to spend a haunted night in the state
• Haunted places in New Hampshire

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Forest Society: Madame Sherri Forest
• Boston.com: These N.H. woodland ruins conjure the wild past of a '20s party girl (2018)
• New England Today: Madame Sherri's Castle Ruins in West Chesterfield, NH
• Atlas Obscura: Madame Sherri's Castle
• Chesterfield Historical Society: Haunted Chesterfield