Mike Newman – entrepreneur with a mission

By Tom Mueller

Mike Newman is an entrepreneur on a mission these days. Known by a growing number of Texans as the man who built his own castle in the Texas countryside, he’s now diligently building a business around the castle and attracting thousands of visitors a year to the small town of Bellville.

And as part of his mission, he is using humor, baked goods, and a hopeless romantic’s enthusiasm to entertain and to help reconnect people with the simple joys of life.

Newman, 59, was born and raised in Bellville and today remains a stalwart in the community. He has always been a bit of a free and adventuresome spirit, though his easy smile and laid-back demeanor cover well for the risk-taking adventurer that lies within. After graduating from high school and giving college a try, he dropped out to do missionary work for five years, while also backpacking and exploring Europe. That yearning for adventure has remained over time, and in any given year you may find him traveling somewhere exotic – including the Middle East – to visit friends and continue exploring the world. In 2008, he and a friend sailed a 44-foot catamaran across the Atlantic.

That early appetite for adventure and inclination toward ministry would later morph into a spirit of entrepreneurship that led him to build a successful business, a genuine castle, and a continuing, low-key ministry back in his home town.

In addition to the castle, he owns Newman’s Bakery, a popular motorcycle stop and local gathering place in town that caters to an eclectic mix of locals and city folk from the Houston and Austin area.

Newman says the clientele visiting the bakery hasn’t changed much since he first opened in Bellville 31 years ago, that it remains an eclectic mix. But sales and head count through the door have increased over time as Bellville and surrounds grow, and as his castle business attracts a growing number of visitors to the area.

A simpler time

When you walk in to Newman’s Bakery, you’ll notice the massive – and retro – bakery display counters packed with the fresh-baked goods that have made Newman’s a staple in the area for three decades. The glass displays give the place that dated look that adds to the welcoming feeling. Newman has also created a wall of mugs over to the left near the coffee station – each mug placed there to recognize a regular customer or friend. The décor is rustic country. It isn’t intended to be retro, time has just made it so. Newman’s opened in this location in 1991 and not a lot has changed since then.

Friends regularly tease him about the dated ambiance. “We know the building is very old, so we tease Mike that he should fix this or that. But we all know that if he were to change anything, then it would not feel the same,” says Cleide Aitkin, a regular at the bakery who runs an oil field equipment company in nearby Kenney. “People feel very comfortable because it is a simple place in the country,” she says.

Newman says he thinks about updating from time to time. “I probably should. I’ve had some people talk to me and give me some ideas. But I kind of like it the way it is.”

Today the bakery menu covers many traditional baked goods, including pies, tortes, cookies, and kolaches – all baked fresh on site. He added a short order kitchen some years ago to serve up a hearty hot breakfast. The lunch menu includes sandwiches, burgers and soups. And they’re open for afternoon tea – a popular attraction for local ladies’ groups.

As you walk through the door on a Saturday or Sunday morning, off to the left you’ll likely see older local residents – retirees, ranchers and farmers – many in cowboy hats; over to the right and along the windows you’ll see motorcycle groups in their t-shirts, skull caps and leathers, along with touring bicyclists in their colorful jerseys and spandex; and in the center you will likely see a local church group having a relaxed breakfast and maybe a Bible discussion. Out on the front porch you’ll find the more entertaining group – the local gentry and story tellers, another informal social group that gathers for coffee and maybe breakfast, but mostly to chew the fat and compare cars or motorcycles, or talk politics.

This traditional bakery stands in sharp contrast to the castle, but both hearken back to a simpler time, a more romantic time, when the pace of life was slower.  Stepping in to Newman’s Bakery or Newman’s Castle is a gentle reminder that not everything is moving at the speed of Apple. A cup of coffee in Newman’s Bakery is a cup of life from a simpler time. And the coffee is pretty good.

“It’s just a friendly place,” says long time resident and bakery patron Don Lawrence. Lawrence visits the bakery regularly, sometimes with a group of men known locally as the ROMEOS – retired old men eating out sometimes. “And if you go there, nine times out of 10 – if you’re a complete stranger – someone will say hello to you,” he says.

Friends describe Newman as a hopeless romantic and a kid at heart, a generous soul who gives to the community, leads Bible studies at the county jail, and works with the Gideons International to distribute Bibles around the world. He is also a spirited and head-strong entrepreneur, one who is defying the odds and building a successful small-town business, providing employment in the local community, and drawing thousands of visitors to Bellville each year.

But like many entrepreneurs, realizing his vision for this business required perseverance and a willingness to go his own way when confronted with roadblocks and adversity. You see, building a castle in South Texas is not something that invites encouragement from friends and family, much less contractors who might help bring this unusual vision to life.

A recent visitor told Newman that it looks like a castle a kid would have built. His response: “It could be – I felt like a kid when I drew it, you know?”

The Castle

The castle idea actually came to him after he bought some acreage in the country and was getting ready to build a house. His initial thought was to build a log cabin, but a chance conversation sparked an idea for the castle that he just couldn’t let go.

“I was talking to the guy I bought the property from. He was picking my brain to see what I was going to be putting up out there,” Newman recalls. “He mentioned the word castle in context of ‘a man’s home is his castle.’ His word sparked something in my brain and I started to draw a picture on a napkin of a castle I wanted to have as my house.”

But designing and building the castle would test his patience and his vision. The castle was inspired by other castles he had seen in books and in person while on international trips. He started the design work before the internet became the information force that it is today – and largely relied on his own creativity and preferences.

A recent visitor told Newman that it looks like a castle a kid would have built. His response: “It could be – I felt like a kid when I drew it, you know?”

Friends and family members questioned his sanity, and he wavered at times, but after three years of thinking it over, he eventually marked a date on the calendar for his go/no-go decision.

“After a while, when you’re talking about it, people start thinking you’re a little crazy. And so in order to not have to argue with them – I didn’t have any personal defenses against that sort of thing – so I actually put a date down on a calendar. On that date I was gonna either go ahead and give myself permission to do that crazy project – or give myself some good excuses and go on and do something a bit more practical.”

But as he would learn, making the decision was only the first of many steps that would test his vision and passion for the project. The next step was actually bringing his vision to life through the construction process. He initially sought out contractors to do the work, but quickly ran into conflicts.

“I really wanted to contract it out and get other people to build it…but it didn’t work out,” he says. “The contractors wanted to build it the way everyone else is building houses…they were wanting do it their way, and that didn’t sit well with me for one reason or another. It dawned on me I might need to learn how to do this stuff myself.”

With that, Newman became the entrepreneur who built his own castle, once cinder block at a time. He and a single helper have completed all the construction work themselves. He also hand-built most of the furniture in the castle’s rooms and dining halls. His father, now deceased, was there when Newman laid the first cinder block that officially started construction.

It took Newman eight years to build enough of the castle that he could move in – it has been his primary residence since 2007 – and he continues expanding it to add guest rooms for overnight stays, as well as a new bell tower. He envisions it as a potential venue for small corporate retreats once he has more sleeping accommodations built out.

Says friend Lawrence: “It’s one of those projects that he’s never going to finish. He keeps finding things he can do to make it better.”

Holding court

Newman is king of the castle, and he dresses the part – with a crown and a sword or scepter – when hosting visitors. He offers tours and personally hosts groups as large as 130 people six days a week, plying his guests with stories of princely adventures and fanciful tales of love from medieval times. Children are handed wooden swords and shown to the trebuche, where Newman and a helper demonstrate that historic tool of war as he talks about the ancient days and life in medieval times. His patience when working with groups of children is remarkable.

He takes on the role of king quite naturally, and plays well to an audience. Friends say he can be a bit of a ham when he’s acting, but it’s all part of his mission and just having fun. He gets involved in local community theatre as well.

“There’s no question he’s having fun. If you’ve ever seen him knight a four-year-old kid – he is in his glory when he’s doing that. And it’s an experience for these kids that are going out there – they really remember it,” says Lawrence.

Newman’s entrepreneurial spirit is evident in his ongoing business development activities that leverage the castle. Lunch for the growing number of visitors is catered from his bakery in town, adding a new segment of business for that food operation; and he recently began hosting the dinner theater group Murder by Chocolate at the castle, a unique venue for a murder-mystery event that typically sees 45-50 visitors coming through the doors. Or over the drawbridge, actually. That group is based in Clear Lake and brings people from across the Houston metropolitan area out to the castle.

For Bellville, Newman’s entrepreneurial spirit means a growing number of visitors stopping in local shops to browse and spend money.

“All these busloads of people that come through – they do shopping in Bellville,” observes Lawrence. “All those people don’t just drive in and go to the castle – they start at the bakery, then go to his castle, then go shopping around town. They spend money whenever they hit town.”

On a recent Wednesday morning, Newman had two groups of visitors from Austin and one from the Katy area at the castle. Newman personally greeted the visitors and hosted a tour that included firing a large rock from the trebouche, raising and lowering the drawbridge using a human-powered windlass, a visit to the dungeon complete with a hanging cage, medieval stockade, and bed of nails; and a tour of the living accommodations and kitchen.

He held court over lunch in the grand hall and regaled the audience with the love story of the princess and the frog. He called on some adults in the audience to join him in acting out the story in front of the kids, much to their amusement. Clearly, this project is a work of love for Newman that indulges and energizes his passion for adventure, and allows him to bring some of that excitement back home to share with others.

So this Texas entrepreneur continues his mission – following his unique dream and passion and defying the odds by building a successful business on that dream. And he continues exploring the world looking for adventure, having fun holding court in a castle, and sharing a message with even the jail population. He appreciates the beauty of it all every day.

Says Newman:  “I’m having an awful lot of fun doing this stuff.”

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If you go, you’ll need reservations for the castle. Make them here:

newmanscastle.com