In praise of crazy palaces

I've seen some palaces in my day, including Buckingham Palace. But the only ones that have stuck in my mind and captured my heart are the crazy constructions of eccentric visionaries, men who were driven to build fantastic edifices one pebble, scrap, or shard at a time.

Let's begin with Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Ideal. Cheval, a postman in rural France, tripped over a stone while walking his route one day in 1879. He was smitten by the stone's beauty, and began collecting similar ones and taking them home in a wheelbarrow. For 34 years he toiled at night, building the palace that had appeared in his dreams when he was a young man. The palace still stands, embellished with beasts, caryatids, spires, and inscribed poems, in the countryside near the little town of Hauterives. Here's a translation of one of his poems:

In searching I have found. Forty years I have carved to create this fairytale palace. For my idea, my body braved everything -- the weather, the criticism, the years. Life is a quick steed. My thoughts will live on with this rock.
-- Ferdinand Cheval

I journeyed to yet another bizarre palace near the tiny town of Xilitla, Mexico: the Surrealist Palace of Edward James. The drive alone would have made the trip worthwhile, even if there had been no palace at the end of the trip. (There almost wasn't -- my friend and I had a devil of a time finding the palace.) We drove from Monterrey, through valleys framed by the Sierra Madre Oriental, past mile afer mile of citrus orchards in bloom.

Edward James was a wealthy patron of the Arts -- the Surrealist Arts to be precise. In 1944, while visiting Cuernavaca, Mexico, he met a young man named Plutarco Gastelum. The young man took James to his favourite spot, a jungle waterfall called Las Posas, outside of Xilitla. When they emerged from a swim in the pool at the foot of the falls, their bodies were enshrouded by butterflies, and James -- perhaps motivated by such a surreal occurrence -- decided he would build his home there. And what a home! An homage to Surrealism, the palace includes structures with names like "The House with a Roof Like a Whale," "Homage to Max Ernst," and "Temple of the Ducks."

The U.S. has its share of baroque and beautiful structures as well. Although not a palace, the spires of Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in L.A. are a sight to behold. Italian immigrant Simon Rodia constructed the towers in his spare time over a period of 33 years, out of rebar, wire mesh, mortar, adorned with a variety of scraps and objects, from seashells to bits of broken porcelain. The towers were finished in 1954 and still stand, thanks to several passionate preservationists, including my late friend Seymour Rosen. Bless you, Seymour!

I had in mind to do something big, and I did it.
-- Simon Rodia

Another immigrant, Sicilian Baldassare Forestiere, built downward, rather than upward, to create his palace. Tunneling beneath the ground in Fresno, California for about 40 years, Forestiere carved out an underground home with nearly 100 rooms. Because a thick layer of clay made it impossible to plant anything, Forestiere placed his citrus trees and grapevines in pots below the ground, and allowed them to poke up out of shafts to receive sunlight and air. The orchard is an odd sight, as only the tops of the trees are visible from aboveground. The Forestiere Underground Gardens are, as far as I know, still alive and well and open to the public.

The visions of my mind overwhelm me.
-- Baldassare Forestiere

Photography credits: Although I have visited all the sites mentioned here, I photographed them in the old days, before digital photography. Therefore I have relied on other people's photos to illustrate this post. The photos (top to bottom) are by S.D. Clark, Kristin Fiore, and Gordon Converse.