Heartfelt Bishop Castle documentary puts Fountain native on national-awards track

Bishop Castle, Rye’s world-famous roadside curiosity, is in the spotlight again, this time in a documentary nominated for one of student-filmmaking’s highest honors.

“The Castle Builder: The World’s Largest One Man Project,” directed by Fountain’s Tristan Hunter Owen, was last week nominated for the Television Academy Foundation’s 41st College Television Awards.

The awards — a product of the same organization that produces the Emmys — recognize excellence in student-produced programs from colleges and universities nationwide, organizers said in a press statement. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Saturday, March 26, which can be streamed at emmys.com/events/cta/2022.

“I used to spend the summers at my grandparents’ cabin, which is located a few blocks down the street from the castle,” Owen said in a press statement. “Each summer, my brothers and I would climb around the castle and observe the progress.”

Owen, who graduated from Fountain Fort Carson High School, is currently a student at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts. He and classmate Thomas McDonald received nominations in the Nonfiction or Reality Series category for producing, writing and directing “The Castle Builder.”

Fifty-four students were nominated in six categories for the 2022 awards, selected from 185 entries submitted from 58 colleges nationwide, organizers said.

The structural wonder, which founder Jim Bishop began building in 1969, has been the subject of national tourist guides and controversy — from legal battles over ownership, devastating fires and dust-ups with Custer County officials over parties in and around the castle.

Bishop bought the 2.5-acre plot of land when he was 15 years old for $450 as a way to escape from Pueblo, The Denver Post’s Sam Tabachnik reported in November. Over the next decade, he and his father, Willard, began laying the groundwork for a family cabin, using stones from nearby mountains. Now, son Dan Bishop is poised to take it over.

The documentary follows the history and future path of the castle, Owen said, and its 77-year-old founder’s quest to keep his dream going even while battling cancer, Parkinson’s disease and spinal stenosis.

“As a child, and now as an adult, Jim Bishop’s grit inspires me to build my own castle in this life, whatever that may be,” Owen wrote. “I wanted to help share this story with others, as they too can find inspiration in the remarkable journey of Jim Bishop.”

As an aspiring cinematographer, Owen said he’s in pre-production for a documentary feature that “follows rural search and rescue volunteers as they fight to keep their program functioning, while maintaining their duty to save lives in the depths of the Colorado backcountry.”