Trump’s spokesman “John Barron”-most assuredly Trump himself-explained to New York that Trump Castle had become “just too expensive” and that the developer had grown impatient with the approvals process.

The project fell apart amid rising real-estate prices and increasing competition in the luxury-apartment market. No models or drawings of Johnson and Burgee’s design appear to have been made public at the time, though the architects’ campy, turreted office building at 33 Maiden Lane, in downtown Manhattan, hints at the glory that might have been Trump Castle. Johnson returned the compliment, declaring, “Trump is mad and wonderful.” “These guys are hot!” Trump told The New York Times, referring to Johnson and his partner, John Burgee, who had just goosed Manhattan’s skyline with the showy postmodernism of the AT&T building.

The partnership between the 37-year-old developer and the 77-year-old architect was not as unlikely as one might think, given their shared egotism and love of the limelight. As “a source close to the developer”-probably Trump himself-told New York magazine, “After Donald did Trump Tower, there’s not a lot left for him to do in this business, so he just wants to do something great.” The company then brought Trump into the project and gave him a 49 percent stake for free because, as a Prudential executive later explained, “his name had magic in it.” While Johnson’s castle design was, as architecture, a world away from Trump Tower’s black-glass slickness, Trump was enthusiastic. Prudential Insurance had bought the land, on which sat an eight-story building, in 1981. Announced in 1983 for a site on Madison Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets, it was to be called-inevitably-Trump Castle. The project included six cylindrical towers with crenellated tops, spires, and gold-leaf adornment, plus, at street level, a drawbridge and a moat. “Lunacy.” That was real-estate brokers’ contemporaneous description of Trump’s intended follow-up to his flagship Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue in New York: a 60-story luxury residential complex, designed by the renowned if erratic Philip Johnson to mimic a medieval castle. Herewith, a quick summary of what never happened. His career is marked by plans for major projects that never came to pass-arguably to posterity’s benefit. The Moscow tower, which at 100 stories would have been the tallest building in Europe, was but the latest attempt by Donald Trump to leave behind a skyline-altering legacy. To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app.

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