How VDare's 'castle' tore apart Berkeley Springs
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Hayden's book "Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town" chronicles how VDare's 2020 purchase of a historic Berkeley Springs building called "the castle" triggered a multiyear rift in which neighbors stopped speaking and business partnerships collapsed.
- Peter and Lydia Brimelow founded VDare in 1999; critics describe the anti-immigration outlet as the "genteel face" of white nationalist groups, and Stephen Miller is reportedly a fan of its writing.
- VDare bought the castle using roughly $4.5 million in donations funneled through DonorsTrust, a group that bundles money from wealthy rightwing donors and obscures its sources.
- New York's attorney general sued VDare last year, alleging the Brimelows used the non-profit for personal gain; VDare denies the allegation and has fought the suit at mounting cost.
- Hayden, a former SPLC researcher who spent more than a decade covering the far right, developed suicidal ideation and says the FBI once contacted him about an assassination threat while he was at a batting cage with his eight-year-old son.
- VDare's anti-immigration mission may have already succeeded — Hayden points to mass-deportation signs at the 2024 Republican National Convention — and he questions whether the outlet has been made obsolete by younger figures like Nick Fuentes and the wider Maga ecosystem.
Why it matters: Hayden frames Berkeley Springs as a microcosm of America's "cold civil war," arguing the anti-immigration ideology VDare pushed for decades has now entered the Republican mainstream — from 2024 RNC signs to Stephen Miller's role. For small towns, the case shows how a single outside ideological project can fracture community life for years.
Ask SkimNews
