A huge mansion in tony Woodside has been rebrand the Startup Castle, as of about a year ago, and it's offering "monk-like" lodging for startup bros in a bizarre, stately setting, straight out of HBO's Silicon Valley. It's basically like an artists' colony, except for engineers, and there are a whole host of crazy dictums from these would-be Erlichs about what you can't do or be if you hope to be allowed to live here.

On the Startup Castle website it's described as:

One of the largest estates in Silicon Valley with everything you need to live and launch your greatest ambitions. Huge spaces for living, working, and entertaining. Includes a ballroom, 100-seat theater, bar and lounge for entertaining, full gym with professional equipment, co-working offices, and conference rooms.

The space is a 17,000 square-foot Tudor mansion (formerly the Buck Estate), thus the ballroom, but too bad you'll never get to have a real party there. (They appear to have had a dance, once, but that photo does not look fun.) It looks like it was bought a little over a year ago, and as Valleywag reported, angel investor Kevin Colleran posted about one of the startups he invested in, comprised of "recent Stanford grads," moving into the place in January of last year.* It appears they're finally looking to make use of more square feet. And now it sounds like Fight Club for nerds, complete with mandatory exercise.

As Fusion notes, in order to qualify for your $1,000-a-month rent, there are a whole lot of things you can not do, have, or be. Such as:

- Watch more than 4 hours of TV/movie/game entertainment per week
- Have more than 1 tattoo
- Have ever attended more than 1 protest
- Make more than three posts a week to social media
- Listen to a songs with explicit lyrics more than an once a day
- Wear make-up more than twice a week
- Own any clothing, shoes, watches, or handbags costing over $500
- Have bills that get paid by somebody else
- Drive a vehicle that was given to you by your parents
- Get regular spending money or gifts from your parents
- Have more than one internet app date per week
- Have a complex diet that requires lots of refrigerator space
- Drink alcohol more than 3 drinks per week
- Use marijuana more than twice a year
- Have been prescribed anything by a psychiatrist more than once
- Use any other drug more than twice in your entire life

So, if you have only tried cocaine twice, basically never drink, and dislike all hip-hop music, you're in!

Does this not sound a little weird, though? Like, you're not allowed to own an expensive watch or use Twitter too much? Is this supposed to weed out the douchebags? And it's obviously sexist and they don't want women there.

Anyway, I'm not sure anyone but the most desperately ambitious (and teetotaling) of young nerdy upstarts would want to live here anyway, since the "dorm" rooms are straight out of Apartment Sadness, bunk beds and all. (They replaced the bunk bed photo with this one in the last few hours, after the Fusion thing went live.)

They're still trying to get a "permanent group" of would-be startup millionaires settled there. But no Erlich Bachmans with their bongs need apply.


* This post has been corrected to show that Kevin Colleran is not an owner of Startup Castle.