Royal treatment

Luxurious San Antonio castle lets guests live like royalty for $750 a night

Lambermont Estate can be rented for $750 per night.

On your next getaway to Alamo City, you very well might check out a lodging option like San Antonio’s widely acclaimed 146-room Hotel Emma, housed in the old brewhouse at the Pearl.

Not too far from Hotel Emma, though, is a more intimate and perhaps more spectacular place to stay — a 126-year-old, castle-like mansion turned Airbnb property fit for royalty.

Lambermont Estate, which also serves as a venue for weddings, baby showers, parties, and other events, sits on a lush one-acre site at 950 E. Grayson St. on the Near East Side.

The event website for Lambermont Estate (at one time known as Terrell Castle) describes the mansion as “a true historic jewel that offers unmatched character and warmth.”

The sand-colored stone house — built in 1894 by Edwin Holland Terrell, a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium — is inspired by European castles, and features four bedrooms and five bathrooms. That’s enough space, according to the Airbnb listing, to accommodate eight guests. All of the bedrooms are on the second floor.

Sadly, wet bars in the master suite and on the first floor aren’t stocked, so you’ll need to BYOB. However, the master suite is equipped with a two-person Jacuzzi and a fireplace where you can sip your adult beverage of choice.

Airbnb guests enjoy access to the common areas on the first floor, including the library, music room, parlor, and dining room. Kitchen amenities also are available. Wrap-around porches look out onto the well-manicured lawn.

To give you an idea of how immense the 12,000-square-foot mansion is, it can hold about 70 guests for a sit-down event and about 150 attendees for a standing-room-only gathering.

Interior highlights include crystal chandeliers, hand-carved woodwork, hardwood floors, original cabinetry, nine molded-brick fireplaces, and a wine cellar.

Terrell originally named his castle Lambermont in honor of business associate Baron Augusta Lambermont. After Terrell died in 1910, the property went through a number of ownership changes before current owners Pat and Dona Liston bought it in 2008 to establish an event center.

Luxury lodging with this pedigree does come at a steep price: $750 per night. But if you split the bill among eight guests, it’s less than $100 per night for each person. On its own, the master suite goes for $250 a night.

Be warned: The ghost of a former owner is said to occupy the castle. So you might be joined by another guest.

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RESTORING THE ALAMO

Texas' iconic Alamo unearths bronze cannonball used in historic battle

Photo by Daniel Schwen/ CC BY-SA 4.0

The Alamo has unearthed a cannonball likely used in the original battle.

Most tourists don't realize it, but in addition to being one of the most-visited sites in the United States, the Alamo is also an active archeological site. And during its newest excavation, it unearthed a doozy — a fully-intact cannonball that can be traced back to Texas' most famous battle.

The Alamo first broke the news on Stories Bigger Than Texas: The Alamo Podcast. The artillery shell was discovered on March 5, 2026, a day before the 190th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo.

"I have chills now, just thinking about it," the Alamo's Director of Archaeology, Dr. Tiffany Lindley, told the podcast hosts. "March 5th is when we pulled it out of the ground. I don't think words can express the feelings that we all felt."

Alamo cannonball The cannonball is four pounds and made of solid bronze.Photo courtesy of the Alamo Trust

The four-pound, solid bronze cannonball was discovered approximately three feet below ground outside the Alamo Church. The dig’s layers of soil settled in a clearly visible pattern, allowing the archeologists to date the object with near certainty.“

"We can’t say with 100% certainty that it came from the Mexican Army, but I would say 99% because largely the Mexican Army is using bronze cannonballs and largely the Texans are using iron cannonballs," said Alamo's Senior Researcher and Historian Kolby Lanham. "Doesn’t mean they didn’t capture each other’s stuff and use it, but I would say with a fair amount of certainty that this is a Mexican Army cannonball and it was likely fired at the Battle of the Alamo — or it could have been during the 12-day siege.”

The cannonball isn’t the only Alamo artifact that was recently discovered. In January, the trust celebrated the return of one of the 1836 cannons. The weapon was found by a descendant of Samuel Maverick’s family, who said it was used as the base of a birdbath.

history artifacts archeaology texas history alamo