The Gift of Gothic

Despite the forbidding dragon in the foreground, this castle appears to have been sold to a satisfied "Homenet real estate" customer. In fact, the castle was built and "sold" in Cape Town, South Africa to corporate donors as part of a fund-raiser for children's charities. With its steeply pitched Gothic gables, carved crests and soaring turrets, the castle fetched more than $12,500.

City of Sand

Not content to carve just a castle, Sandsational built an entire village, complete with row houses, a cathedral and street trees. Window styles resembling traditional double-hungs dominate the houses, while the tower in the rear shows notched ledge walls with a gap-toothed look, a feature on real castles known as crenelation.

Knights of the Round Turret

This small castle plays with the proportions of the building in relation to the oversize characters carved into its facade. The conical turret at the top brings the stone chimneys and cluster of gables to a sharp apex. Raised blocks of smooth, squared stone, known as ashlar, project from the wall behind the knight and beneath the princess to create the appearance of masonry.

Hilltop Hollows

Created by two-time World Grandmaster Champion Rich Varano, this craggy medieval castle features Gothic arched windows and conical turrets. A pair of rough-hewn arches at the bottom seem to defy gravity, as does the gaping maw of a face emerging from the path leading to the base of the castle. It is 9.5-ft. tall, took 35 hours to build, and won the People's Choice Award at its exhibition in British Columbia in 2007.

Le Petit Arc

Inspired by Paris' Arc de Triomphe, this miniature mimics the original right down to the decorative sculpting along its facade. The blocky dentil molding along the arch's crown reappears on the rear tower, adorning the fascia above the clock and beneath the copper finials. At front, a subdued Napoleon I seems pleased with the likeness.

Sandy Arabia

With its domed minaret and unornamented windows, this Arabian Nights scene would fit perfectly on the coast of Yemen at the mouth of the Red Sea. Built on a coast much farther west, the castle won the Sculptor's Choice Award for its creators—a team called The Revolutionaries—at the 2005 Harrisand tournament in British Columbia.

Drawing Lines in the Sand

Sand sculptors' tools include the usual shovels and buckets, as well as an array of homemade tools specialized to the work. The two men in the first photograph etch lines using masons' pointing tools. In The Art of Sandcastling, Siebert makes a pair of the column tools by drilling a straight row of uniform holes into a laminate countertop scrap, then cuts the scrap in half through the holes to form two scalloped edges. The solo worker in the next image uses a similar tool to shape columns on his castle.

Space Dust

While technically not within an established architectural style (yet), the Galactic Headquarters exemplifies a construction method unique to sand sculpting. To create this "hollow dome" effect built at a sand castle contest in East Hampton, N.Y., the artist likely worked with a preconstructed form. Inside, he saturated and packed the form with water and sand until he could carve out the gaps. For larger hollows, artists may insert several inflatable toys or balloons into the form.

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