Eccentric is a word frequently associated with Crispin Glover. From his quirky on-screen roles—including Back to the Future's George McFly and the Thin Man in Charlie's Angels—to his unorthodox appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, nothing the actor and director does is, well, conventional. So we weren't sure what to expect when we sent a crew to photograph Glover's 17-bedroom, 20-acre estate in Konarovice, Czech Republic, just 45 minutes outside of Prague. What we discovered was nothing short of fantastical. Like, Wes Anderson-should-be-jealous fantastical.

It was almost too much to take in: There were dozens of peacocks strutting around the well-kept grounds, mysterious locked rooms we were instructed not to venture into, and the tale of the former owner who disappeared one day.

One of Glover's first moves was to uncover and repaint the walls. Murals dating back to the 1700s were beneath centuries of paint.

The 17th-century Renaissance-style chateau, dubbed Zamek Konarovice, which translates to Konarovice Chateau or Konarovice Castle ("but I don't generally call it a castle," Glover says), is not a vacation home or a real estate investment for the 53-year-old bachelor, whose main house is in Silver Lake, California. Glover, who currently plays Mr. World on STARZ's American Gods, purchased the property 14 years ago as a place to build permanent sets for his future productions.

He had just finished directing his second independent drama, It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine., when he had the idea to purchase a place to build his own sets for future films. "I had been talking to a producer about it, and he said he had read an article about Czech chateaus that were going for a good price. I knew immediately that was what I was going to do," he says. "I had considered purchasing a farm in upstate New York to shoot productions, and a Manhattan apartment. Purchasing the chateau ended up making more sense and working out."

Although buying and restoring a Czech castle in order to construct film sets for your own film productions seems like a lofty and perhaps guileless ambition, Glover made it work. When he first purchased the manor, sprawling and nearly dilapidated, a master apartment was the only livable space. He eventually acquired the surrounding structures, including horse stables that were converted to two atelier shooting stages, for a total of 18,000 square feet that he tailored specifically to the movie he is currently working on, Untitled Crispin Hellion Glover Project. Whenever he is in production, Glover invites his film crew to stay in the chateau. "I could never afford to do this in the United States," he says earnestly.