Scotty's Castle

Scotty's Castle is closed, and not partially. As of September 3, 2026 there is no public access of any kind: the castle, the grounds, the Grapevine Canyon area and Bonnie Clare Road are all shut to visitors, pedestrians included, and no reopening date has been announced. The single exception is the Death Valley Natural History Association's Flood Recovery Walking Tour, a winter-only program that runs a short season and requires an advance reservation. Outside that tour there is no legal way onto the property, so read this page as a record of the place rather than a plan for this week.

What's behind the closure: the October 2015 flash flood tore through Grapevine Canyon and wrecked the road, utilities and grounds, then a 2021 fire and record rains in 2022 and 2024 kept adding damage. The restoration has been estimated near $90 million. The building itself is Death Valley's strangest landmark, a 1920s Spanish-Mediterranean villa put up not by the prospector Walter "Death Valley Scotty" Scott, who sold the story of a secret gold mine, but by Chicago insurance magnate Albert Johnson, who paid for it, owned it, and stayed friends with the con man who took the credit.

If you're weighing the drive anyway: the site sits about 150 miles from Las Vegas at the park's far north end, roughly three hours each way, and Death Valley charges its own $30 vehicle entry fee. Check the NPS Scotty's Castle page and DVNHA for the next tour season before you commit to anything. The reopening date has slipped repeatedly since 2015 and nobody is naming a new one.