Ashlar Hall – Abandoned House

Ashlar Hall is a mock castle in Memphis, Tennessee sometimes referred to as Prince Mongo’s Castle.  After Robert Brinkley Snowden graduated from Princeton in 1890, he decided to return to his hometown to design and construct his family estate. Snowden, a prominent real estate developer, completed Ashlar Hall in 1896. The 11,000-square-foot home has two floors with eight rooms plus a full basement and a large attic with servants’ quarters and stained-glass windows imported from Italy. An irregularly shaped swimming pool was once located outside, southwest of the house. The final cost for construction was around $25,000, roughly equivalent to $725,000 today. At the time, the Snowden property stretched for 3,000 acres, well into Mississippi.

Snowden’s great-grandfather, Col. Robert C. Brinkley started the Peabody Hotel several years prior. The Snowden family was considered Memphis royalty by the early 1900s and Brinkley Snowden was considered one of the premier real estate developers. The mansion was named Ashlar Hall due to it being almost entirely constructed of Ashlar Stone which was brought to town on barges. Robert Brinkley Snowden lived in Ashlar Hall until he died in 1942. The property was sold after the death of his wife in 1957. By the 1960s, the bedrooms had been transformed into dining rooms and the mansion was being used as a restaurant. The front lawn was even paved to provide additional parking. Ashlar Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Eccentric Memphis millionaire, Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, purchased Ashlar Hall in 1990. Prince Mongo is infamous for running for Mayor in every election and losing, as well as claiming to be 333 years old, and hailing from the fictional planet Zambodia. During the 1990s, Prince Mongo turned Ashlar Hall into a local late-night hangout called The Castle nightclub. The advertisements of cheap beer and wet t-shirt contests lured in patrons by the dozen. The nightclub became notorious for serving alcohol to minors. Two teenagers were killed in a drunk driving accident in 1992 after leaving The Castle.

Hodges claimed he is innocent of any wrongdoing and no charges were ever filed. He was able to get by many city infractions by putting the business in his employee’s name and just owning the property. Hodges claimed he only collected rent as an absentee landlord. With pressure from neighboring residents, the fire marshal changed the occupancy at The Castle from 451 to 88. The next day, the club was shut down due to overoccupancy. In response, Prince Mongo had 800 tons of sand dumped in the parking lot and moved the party outdoors to get around the fire marshal’s order. On occasion, Hodges would stand on the roof of The Castle and howl at the moon.

Once The Castle closed, Ashlar Hall sat vacant for several years. Due to mounting city code violations, Prince Mongo gave away the property to a close friend who supposedly operated a nonprofit for veterans. Urban Renaissance Initiative acquired Ashlar Hall through a quitclaim deed from Robert Hodges in 2013. The new owner hired a contractor who removed restaurant equipment still owned by Prince Mongo, and pieces of copper that were a part of the roof and original stonework to sell. These items were never recovered. A warrant was later issued for the contractor’s arrest in 2015.

In November 2018, media outlets reported the new owner, Juan Montoya, had made progress in repairing the building. He believed the entire renovation might require as much as $400,000, after which the property could be used as an event or office space. In April 2019, Ashlar Hall served as the venue for the production “Rites of Spring” by Memphis theatrical group Lost In Found.