Dramatically sited on the bayshore side of the drive, the “castle” was built for Turkish Armenian hotel owner V. M. Donigan. The composition is dominated by a three-story, red-tiled roof turret that serves as an entrance and connector to its two flanking wings. Donigan built the house at the former location of the Alta Vista Hotel, the centerpiece of Ropes's Port Aransas Cliffs development. Designed in 1891 the resort hotel was inaugurated but never opened due to foreclosure by Ropes's creditors. Intermittently used for other functions, it burned in 1927, forever closing the Ropes chapter in Corpus Christi's history.
You are here
V. M. Donigan House, “Donigan's Castle”
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.