How about a castle, a lighthouse, or maybe even a pineapple for your next vacation? Nelson Aldrich experiences the follies and the grandeur, not to mention the moderate prices, of Britain's Landmark Trust

Delightful as it proved to be, Beckford's Tower was not our first choice for a summer week's vacation in Britain. I don't remember exactly what was—the seaside castle in South Devon, perhaps, or the circular Elizabethan almshouse in North Yorkshire, with a chastening chapel at its hub. The Landmark Trust gives you plenty of properties to choose from—166 in Britain alone—all beautifully displayed in its elegant catalog. The tower built by William Beckford in 1827 didn't seem especially alluring. It is a folly of the 1820s, near Bath, and by the look of it in the photograph, handsome and arrogant but neither fanciful nor weird, as a folly should be.

And that, in actuality, is what it was and wasn't. Approaching the tower from the north on the Lansdown Road to Bath, we had to look sharp to catch a glimpse of its golden crown peeking above a copse of tall trees. But once we negotiated the narrow stone gates and entered the courtyard, there, most handsomely and arrogantly, it was. The square granite shaft soars 120 feet, thrusting up out of its base in a neat two-storied Palladian villa, transmogrifying halfway up into an austere Italianate belvedere, and then into a pilastered octagonal gallery topped off by a gilded lantern modeled on a Greek temple. Born of the mind and pocketbook of a libertine well-known for his rampant, multivalent desires, Beckford's Tower was also, at least to my salacious mind, as amusing as it was formidable.

Going in, we met the housekeeper going out, mop and bucket in hand. She cheerfully showed us around the two bedrooms and bath on our left, the kitchen/pantry straight ahead, and the dining/drawing room on our right. The decor was on the homey side of luxurious (a rich man's homey), with echoes of the Middle Ages in the heavy curtains and the color scheme of purple, gold, and red. The furniture was early Victorian, ditto the paintings, while the kitchen, with its slate countertops, was positively chic. Stopping at a sideboard, our guide opened a drawer and removed a bound guest book. 'And here,' she confided, 'you'll find all sorts of helpful comments and suggestions that previous guests have written down for us.'

Her 'us,' I realized, kindly included all four of us: herself (a Landmark Trust volunteer, I judged); my wife, Dee, and me; and our nine-year-old daughter, Arabella. At least two of the new 'Landmark people' were completely tapped out. Four hours off the plane, Dee and I wanted nothing more than to collapse on our bed. Arabella, however, always the perfect little tourist, insisted on climbing the tower. So round and round we went, she and I, as the steps spiraled upward to what looked like infinity. 'Excelsior!' I muttered, panting along behind my daughter's twinkling feet as she bounded up, and up, and up.

Belvedere promises (in Italian) a beautiful view; Robert Beckford had boasted of the grandest vista. But belvedere it is. Grand views must have jagged distant mountains and, closer by, a tumult of water. The view from Beckford's Tower had neither of these. It had, instead, a 360-degree panorama of the lovable countryside of southeastern England in mid-August: yellow fields freshly gleaned of straw, sheep meadows and cow pastures in varied shades of green, and an astonishing number of cricket pitches—all stitched together by hedgerows. Suddenly, a cute couple popped up into the belvedere beside us, sighed with pleasure at the view, and said, 'On dirait un duvet.' And so that landscape seemed: a comforter laid down over the steep and rolling hills, to still their restless heaving. Looking out at this metaphorized prospect, I felt at peace, as if I were reading Arabella to sleep with a fairy tale. But the metaphors spoke of where I longed to be, and I led her down to our apartment, and a nap.