ARCHITECTURE : Laying the Foundation for a Home That Will Serve as His Castle

Past the outer defensework and the dungeon, under the dark oak beams of the center hallway, John Miller was explaining where things are and will be.

“There will be double doors here that will lead into the great hall, with a large stone fireplace on the north wall,” Miller said. “Off the great hall in the northwest tower is a chapel.”

In the woods and pastures of this genteel, fox-hunt country suburb of Washington, D.C., Miller is building his own castle.

He calls it Bull Run Castle, because the north fork of historic Bull Run stream winds through his property and the Bull Run mountains are within sight.

He’s building it virtually by himself, brick by brick, concrete block by block. And if some parts, including the west wing where the chapel will be, are yet to be completed, this is not to doubt his dream.

Miller’s dream keeps him going while he bargains and scrounges for materials, measures and cuts, hooks up wiring and lays down floors.

His goal is a redoubt capable of standing off an infantry assault from any quarter, where defenders behind interior firing ports could pick off any invaders foolhardy enough to breach the walls.

It would also be a comfortable bed-and-breakfast. Visitors could sip their morning tea or coffee in a sunny nook, ride horses on his estate, amble around an as-yet unplanted formal garden and perhaps visit the Walt Disney Co. theme park that may be constructed less than four miles down the road. He expects his castle eventually to pay its own way.

The onetime carpenter from Reading, Pa., now owns 13 acres. “I have to pinch myself. The title says it’s mine.”

Except for a rare hired hand and some help from his family, the hard labor also is all his. But Miller is no stranger to that. Drafted into the Army in 1951, he came up through the ranks to command construction companies and retire as a captain in the Corps of Engineers.

Miller, his wife and three children started on his castle in 1986 after he retired. For a couple of years, until they built a 12- by 20-foot cabin, they spent weekends in a tent, commuting from their home near Fort Belvoir, Va., about 50 miles away. The cabin sheltered them until the castle was far enough along for them to move into.

The castle Miller has designed is an extension of the man--an individual vision, a kind of folk art in building and architecture. “I think I’m artistic,” he said.

But his artistry is not bound by convention. “I’ve never cluttered my head up with any college garbage, so I have no limitations,” he said. “I just do it.”

Being his own architect lets him innovate. His expansive basement shop, made of a single pour of concrete reinforced with steel, doubles as a bomb shelter.

Dulles International Airport is eight miles away, he notes: “Should Dulles get nuked, this can accept the impact load of the castle on top of it without losing its integrity.”

Because it’s his castle, Miller also makes sure he has his luxuries. Above the center hall is a ceiling of skylights that bathe the interior in sun. Jutting from the basement will be a 90-foot escape tunnel, through which cool air will be drawn to naturally air condition his home.

His castle will be thoroughly modern. “If the lord of the castle in the 13th Century could have had a refrigerator, a gas stove and a bathroom, he would have done it,” Miller said. “I’m having it.”

Why he wants a castle, Miller refuses to say. But he does tell briefly of a time while he was still in the Army, when he visited a count in the Netherlands and experienced a castle’s day.

In the morning, he shot pigeons with the game master. In the afternoon, he had sherry. At 8:30 in the evening, he dined at a 12-foot mahogany table illuminated by four silver candelabra, each with 16 candlesticks, while conversing with the count.

The American officer had entered a life that a former construction worker could hardly dream of.

He is now creating it, on his own terms.

And he’s the lord of the castle?

“Yeah,” said Miller. “I guess I am.”