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Castle Farms

event venue in Charlevoix, United States of America

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ5050071
Source-derived summary

Castle Farms is a special events facility located in Charlevoix, Michigan. It was constructed in 1918 by Albert Loeb, who was the Vice President of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and it was designed by Arthur Heun.

History

Albert Loeb built Castle Farms as a model farm to showcase livestock in addition to new farm equipment that was sold by his company. The original estate covered 1600 acres, and included the Loebs's summer home, caretakers houses, fields, orchards, and a livestock barn complex. Loeb hired Chicago architect Arthur Heun to design the buildings on the estate, including the farm buildings. The architecture was inspired by French Normandy castles. During the farm's operation, Loeb bred prize-winning stock of Holstein-Friesian cattle, Duroc-Jersey hogs, and Belgian horses. The farm also established a premium-quality mail-order business in butter, syrup, honey, poultry, eggs, and other products. Albert Loeb died in 1924, but his son Ernest continued the farm for a few years until financial difficulties forced its closure in 1927.

After the farm ceased operations, the buildings remained in the Loeb family and were rented for storage space until 1962, when it was purchased by John Van Haver, an executive who restored the facility and opened it to the public.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Castle Farms” as event venue in Charlevoix, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1918, 1600, 1924, 1927—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Castle, Farms and event can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as event venue in Charlevoix, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5050071. Authority coordinates are 45.280, -85.230. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1600, 1924 and 1927.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Castle Farms”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Castle Farms primary sources, Castle Farms archive and Castle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Castle Farms”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Castle Farms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.