A Look Around
Piatt Castle Mac-A-Cheek

Outside

Inside

Take a Virtual Tour

Explore Piatt Castle Mac-A-Cheek.

Explore rooms no longer on exhibit showing collections from the 1930s - 1960s.

Mac-O-Chee Castle, which stands one mile east of Mac-A-Cheek, was completed in 1881 as a home for Abram Piatt’s older brother Donn and his wife Ella Kirby Piatt. After Donn’s death, Ella sold Mac-O-Chee but continued to live in the area and to influence the next generations of the Piatt family. In 1915, the owner of Mac-O-Chee opened it for tours, just as the Piatt family had done in 1912 at Mac-A-Cheek. Brothers’ Bill and Jim Piatt and Bill’s wife Frances purchased their great, great uncle’s home in 1956 and expanded their tourism business to be known as Piatt Castles. The two homes were operated as one museum for two more generations until 2019, when Piatt family members sold Mac-O-Chee to the Cole family of West Liberty. The Piatt family continues to offer tours, programs, and events at Mac-A-Cheek, and the Cole family plans to open Mac-O-Chee sometime in the future.

The following items included in this virtual tour and previously exhibited in Mac-O-Chee Castle are now on exhibit in Piatt Castle Mac-A-Cheek:

• Family portraits of Benjamin M. Piatt, Donn Piatt, Louise Kirby Piatt, Charles Mac-O-Chee Piatt, and Ella Kirby Piatt

• Donn and Ella Kirby Piatt’s bedroom furnishings

• Donn Piatt’s Civil War artifacts

• Ella Kirby Piatt’s works of art

• Photographs of interior rooms of Mac-O-Chee taken in 1892

• Drawings, paintings and photographs of exterior views of Mac-O-Chee from 1860s – 2010s

• Donn Piatt’s literary collection including his publications.