The Castlemona (Castle Mona) was built between 1803 and 1804 as the residence of the 4th Duke of Atholl during his time as Governor of the Isle of Man, designed by the Duke's Perthshire retainer George Steuart and completed at a cost that ran well over budget. Before 1850, Queen Victoria reportedly considered buying the house as a royal residence in preference to what became Osborne House. The building was converted into a hotel in 1831 and, by the mid-twentieth century, had become the Island's premier hotel, hosting its first licensed casino; a further accommodation and dining wing was added in the early 1960s and a bowling alley extension followed in the early 1990s. The 98-bedroom hotel closed its doors in 2006, and although the Sefton Group acquired the building in 2007 with plans to restore it, those plans were never carried through, leaving the once-grand hotel on Castle Drive standing empty in recent years.