White Christmas or white supremacy? Town split over castle’s owner

For at least some residents in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, the holiday tours of the iconic Berkeley Castle are less about a white Christmas than white nationalism.

Built in the 19th century, the 9,300-square-foot castle serves as headquarters to the VDare Foundation, an anti-immigration group that provides a platform to white nationalists, anti-Semites and race pseudoscientists, the Washington Post reported.

The group’s founder, Peter Brimlow, and his wife, Lydia, told the outlet they are not white nationalists or white supremacists, saying those are “‘devil terms,’ aimed at suppressing debate.”

The couple bought the castle, 54 acres of land and three houses for $1.4 million in 2020 and have since sponsored the town’s annual Christmas celebration, which includes castle tours with children visiting Santa and Mrs. Claus, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. (The SPLC considers VDare a hate group.)

VDare’s presence, especially in such a visible local landmark, has divided the town.

Some say it hurts the town’s reputation as a tourism hub that bills itself as America’s “first spa,” the Post said.

“The castle comes up and then there’s this sort of awkward moment where people are like: ‘Are we gonna talk about the castle?’” Trey Johanson, the owner of a local coffeehouse, told the Washington Post. “I am concerned about our little town suddenly coming to be known as that place where VDare is — you know, the cute little white-supremacist town in West Virginia. That scares the crap out of me.”

Others, however, say VDare’s presence in town is no big deal.

“They are not white supremacists. They’re anti-immigration. They don’t like people just coming over the borders. There’s a lot of people like that,” local business owner Barb Wolfe said to the outlet. “Whatever they want to do, it’s not my concern.”

The Brimlows bought the castle to serve as a “fortress,” Lydia said, to host meetings that they have not been able to hold elsewhere because of their ideology, the Post said.

After buying the castle, the Brimlows then sold it to a nonprofit, founded by Lydia, called the Berkeley Castle Foundation. The New York attorney general is investigating whether those transactions, and Peter Brimlow’s $345,000 salary, represented the misuse of charitable donations, of which VDare received $4.25 million in 2019.

The New York AG is also looking into whether the Brimlows ran afoul of the law on charitable contributions by living in the castle. Their lawyer told the Post the Brimlows have moved out of the castle and are living in a house on the grounds, while paying more than $21,000 a month in rent. (The Brimlows sued the NYAG in December, claiming the office’s subpoena demands were unconstitutional and unreasonable.)

And while the Brimlows steered clear of the castle Christmas tours, and nothing indicated that VDare was connected to the building, some residents vowed not to visit.

“They don’t support us. They are not happy that we are here,” Oscar Robles, a Honduran who owns a Mexican restaurant in town, told the Post. “They see us like a threat, and they think that we don’t have [anything] to add to [the] United States.”

— Ted Glanzer