‘Jackass’ Star Bam Margera Lifts the Lid on Wild Secrets of His Pennsylvania ‘Castle’—and the Crazy Pranks It Played Host To

“Jackass” stuntman Bam Margera has delved into the fascinating history of his now-infamous Pennsylvania home in a new YouTube video—revealing how he created an outrageous domain that is far beyond even the wildest imaginings.

The former professional skateboarder, whose real name is Brandon Cole “Bam” Margera, opened up about the history behind the property, which served as the location for dozens of pranks and hijinks that served as the basis for the popular MTV reality show, which he starred in alongside the likes of Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and Ryan Dunn.

In a candid interview, Margera, 45, admits now that the property never really “felt like home” when he first moved in, because it was used more as a set for the cast’s on-screen insanity than it was as a house for him to settle into.

Margera and MTV film crews basically turned the five-bedroom, three-bath, 4,200-square-foot home on 13.8 acres in a bucolic Philadelphia suburb into a dream skaters’ paradise—and a real estate agent’s worst nightmare.

The skateboarding haven has been tricked out with a massive skate barn and a snake-run driveway, and it’s filled to the brim with the show’s memorabilia.

Skateboard ramps akimbo

The recently released video, in which the famous skateboarding Dern Brothers interview Margera, shows how Margera turned just about every surface available into a skateboard ramp, intentionally burned part of the place down, and converted a hot tub into a giant cereal bowl.

Those are just a few of the milder stunts pulled there. Ambulances in the driveway were a common occurrence.

Margera purchased the West Chester, PA, home, which was originally built in 1984, about 20 years ago, sight unseen.

He paid $1.2 million for the property, which was eventually christened “Castle Bam.”

By the time Margera finally turned up to take ownership of the place, the crew had already started using it as a filming location.

“When I moved in, they had a whole baker’s dozen set of rules just for me. No more upside-down cars in the driveway, no more Civil War reenactments, no more zip lines to the Tree Top Casino, the list goes on,” the stuntman says with a laugh as he gives viewers an inside look.

Never ‘felt like home’

Maybe unsurprisingly, the transformed property-turned-playhouse “never felt like home,” he recalls.

“The kitchen became the Pirate Bar, on the first day I moved in, Slayer played at the grand opening of the house, so there were thousands of people from the West Chester University that I didn’t even know,” he adds.

“When we first moved in, we were playing baseball in there and were breaking the windows. I never really treated it like home until the ‘Viva La Bam’ thing ended.”

Spinoff series

“Viva La Bam” was a spinoff from the “Jackass” series and ran for five seasons on MTV, from 2003 to 2005. It was a mixture of stunts and reality, following Margera and his crew as they did outrageous, mostly skater antics, and also offered a peek into their daily lives.

Most of the show was filmed in the West Chester home and on the grounds. Many of the props, most wrecked and unusable, remain on the property.

“At Castle Bam, you’re going to see a lot of s— here, like behind that dinosaur over there, behind him is a giraffe, then you’ve got the lion over there, and an elephant that we ‘accidentally’ lit on fire last night,” Margera notes.

There are still remnants of the elaborate skate park in the back and the famous “Snake Run” driveway in front, made of bricks and covered in graffiti.

Stunts galore

There were skateboard jumps built from the roof of the barn over the pool, another made of Margera’s father’s car embedded in cement, and a third jump that accidentally burned down when Margera incinerated his two-story shack known as the Tree Top Casino, because it had fallen.

Indoors, the mayhem makers skated and rode motorcycles down the living room staircase, completely filled the living room with bubbles, and gave the “Jackson Pollock treatment” to the kitchen.

“It looked very good for photo shoots for magazines, but when you live here, it looks like a North Philly crack hideout and I had to get it sanded and painted eventually,” says Margera.

At one point, all the toilets were removed, in a prank played on Margera’s parents, who appeared to be living there at the time. Also, naked skateboarders could be seen careening through the halls.

Fans of the show couldn’t get enough of it.

At one point there was even talk of making Castle Bam into a short-term rental on Airbnb, but that plan never came to be. Could you imagine the liability of a place that is famous for being a chaotic prank palace?

An offer on Reddit

About a year ago, a Reddit user claimed he wanted to buy the place, and that Margera offered to sell it to him for $2 million.

“It’s actually not a crazy starting price for the house and land but he’ll never see an offer within several hundred thousand of 2 mil,” commented one responder. “With all the projects + damage it’s taken over the years anyone buying it knows they have to put six figures into fixing it up. Bam probably knows he’ll have to sell it eventually to keep himself afloat.”

For quite a while, Margera owned another home in the same Pennsylvania township where he lived most of the time. He famously set up stunts in that house as well.

These days, Margera is making videos of the wild house, spiced up with clips from past shows depicting crazy stunts. He has converted the barn into an indoor skate park.

Bumpy ride

It hasn’t been an easy ride for Margera, though. In September, he was jailed in Chester County for driving under the influence and violating parole.

He had previously been sentenced to six months of probation after pleading guilty in June to assaulting his brother and making threats to other family members.

After spending a week in jail, Margera was released to rehab for a short-term program of at least 28 days.

He appears to be still having a good time at the raucous old homestead, which bears a treasured wall decorated with 400 of his customized boards.

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