Flamengo Castle

The Flamengo Castle (Castelinho do Flamengo in portuguese) is one of the few mansions left in the Flamengo neighborhood. Built from 1916 until 1918, the mansion was designed by Italian architect Gino Copede in the Art Nouveau style. Initially, the Flamengo Castle served as the house of Commander Joaquim Silva Cardoso — a Portuguese construction entrepeneur — and his wife Carolina. Years later, the homeownership was transferred to Avelino Fernandes, who moved in with his wife Rosalina Fernandes and his daughter Maria de Lourdes Fernandes.

In 1932, both Avelino and Rosalina Fernandes were ran over by a trolley car in front of the castle. A popular urban legend says that Maria de Lourdes, still a little kid, was present at that moment and witnessed the death of her parents. Ever since that moment, Maria had a life of suffering, as she was taken care of by a tutor who robbed all her inheritance money and would abuse her. This tutor kept her locked in the castle's tower, where she, due to all this suffering and mistreatment, committed suicide. It is believed that, to this day, Maria's spirit haunts the mansion. Because of this urban legend, the Flamengo Castle is reputed as a haunted mansion by many cariocas.

Rio's city council made the Flamengo Castle a historic landmark in the 1980s to protect it from deterioration. Millions of reais were spent to renovate the mansion, intended to become a cultural center — but this renewal was never really effective. Nowadays, the mansion presents several infrastructure issues and is often ilegally occupied by homeless people. In May 2024, the municipality contracted a private company to renovate the building, in another attempt to turn it into a cultural hub.