Chateau Muller..?

My parents live in the middle of nowhere, thousands of acres of forest surround them.  And a few farms.  If you drive a few miles, you come across a village of 300 with a post office, gas station, cafe, bank, general store and school.  The ice cream stand closed a few years ago.  ANYWAY, except for 100+ years ago when there were about 100 farms in that town (maybe 7 now), it has always been empty and remote and forested (history of the area, click here).

My sister was in the middle of Muller State forest recently and came across an old state historical marker describing that area as the former estate of the Muller family, a French nobleman...!!! Apparently 200 years ago, Muller ran from France with a barrel of gold and silver and bought 2700 acres of remote forest (it is still remote forest) and built himself a chateau of logs, hiring 150 men in the process, and proceeded to live there with his family as if it was a fortress. After a couple of years Napoleon was defeated and they all moved back to France.... read the history, it is pretty darn interesting.

SO anyway, the original house burned down in 1907.  What is left of it is difficult to locate. The wife and I went to the marker and started hiking into the woods.  We followed a path up a hill and...never saw a thing.  Until we got to the top and found a huge pond (small lake!) that was just a gorgeous gem, utterly beautiful and isolated.  And not on any maps, seemingly with no name.  We figured we would return down the path and look around more carefully, and YES, we found the ruins of the chateau.  In the woods there are some depressions and rectangular shapes dug into the forest floor, with many foundation rocks (no doubt people have been scrounging for treasure there for a long time).  I should have taken a picture, because we also saw a brick.  Half a brick.  I will return and look around more carefully, but on Saturday I was feeling a little Blair Witch Project, as you sometimes feel when in the middle of the spooky nowhere......