The more I travel the more I realize I’m never going to see it all.
Just when I think I’ve seen it all, another crazy, wonderful, inexplicable piece of mankind’s imagination comes along. There was Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, Salzburg’s Love Locks, Chicago’s Bean, and now South Florida’s Coral Castle.
Aside from the fact the castle looks more European than typical roadside kitsch along Florida’s South Dixie Highway (US 1), there’s the aura of UFO’s, magnetic grids, harmonic levitation, and perpetual motion machines (and a gecko/agama or two) that comes with this monument to one secretive man’s life’s work.
Just when I think I’ve seen it all, another crazy, wonderful, inexplicable piece of mankind’s imagination comes along. There was Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, Salzburg’s Love Locks, Chicago’s Bean, and now South Florida’s Coral Castle.
Aside from the fact the castle looks more European than typical roadside kitsch along Florida’s South Dixie Highway (US 1), there’s the aura of UFO’s, magnetic grids, harmonic levitation, and perpetual motion machines (and a gecko/agama or two) that comes with this monument to one secretive man’s life’s work.
How many times do I have to tell people, I don't do insurance quotes!
Eat your heart out Architectural Digest!
This unique remnant of mid-twentieth century has been part of the National Registry of Historic Places since 1984; the castle offered just enough compelling engineering and design to leave me and Jim and my sister Lynda with more questions than answers the day we toured the castle in late January. We were in good company.
No one really knows how one slight Latvian immigrant standing a mere 5’4” and battling tuberculosis managed to single-handedly dig up thirty ton stones from a South Florida oolitic limestone quarry, then fashion those stones into an ‘unusual accomplishment’ he called home for over thirty years.
No one really knows how one slight Latvian immigrant standing a mere 5’4” and battling tuberculosis managed to single-handedly dig up thirty ton stones from a South Florida oolitic limestone quarry, then fashion those stones into an ‘unusual accomplishment’ he called home for over thirty years.
No keeping up with the Joneses in Edward's neighborhood.
Edward Leedskalnin's neighbors didn’t question his eccentric behavior (ghee, my neighbors could use a few pointers), nor did they ever witness the construction of his castle. He worked under cover of darkness for twenty-eight years building and furnishing a home for the family he hoped to have one day. His isolated location in Florida City, once considered the southernmost city in the United States in 1920, notwithstanding those cities considered an island, such as the Florida Keys, afforded him the privacy to conduct his affairs with little fanfare.
Okay, maybe Edward took the ‘every man’s home is his castle’ a little too literally, but what else is a jilted lover to do when he’s left at the altar?
Okay, maybe Edward took the ‘every man’s home is his castle’ a little too literally, but what else is a jilted lover to do when he’s left at the altar?
A Howard Hughes look and act alike, perhaps, without the fortune?
Most who knew the Leedskalnin family of Latvia feel certain Edward did what any respectable man would do: he left his family, his homeland, and his 16-year-old fiancée, 10 years his junior, and headed for America to preserve what little dignity and self-respect he could. (Didn’t he realize how melodramatic 16-year-olds can be?) He was just twenty-five when he went through Ellis Island with dreams of being more than a peasant working the fields of Lithuania alongside his father and brothers.
I can see this meticulous stonemason needing 28 years to create his own castle in southern Florida, a fiefdom in which he could be the undisputed lord, right down to his own throne (no, not the porcelain kind). It took Jimmy 9 months to remodel our master bathroom, and while he carved out the original space down to the studs before removing a few and rebuilding the entire area, he didn't have to spend time chiseling stone before installing the sinks, cabinets, shower and toilet.
Sitting in Edward’s throne room among the constellation of stars just over my shoulder, I could imagine this diminutive man looking out over his fiefdom, beaming with pride. Protected inside the 8-foot walls he’d crafted with little more than his bare hands and a few primitive tools, he was truly king of his castle, his world, his fate, where once he'd failed.
I can see this meticulous stonemason needing 28 years to create his own castle in southern Florida, a fiefdom in which he could be the undisputed lord, right down to his own throne (no, not the porcelain kind). It took Jimmy 9 months to remodel our master bathroom, and while he carved out the original space down to the studs before removing a few and rebuilding the entire area, he didn't have to spend time chiseling stone before installing the sinks, cabinets, shower and toilet.
Sitting in Edward’s throne room among the constellation of stars just over my shoulder, I could imagine this diminutive man looking out over his fiefdom, beaming with pride. Protected inside the 8-foot walls he’d crafted with little more than his bare hands and a few primitive tools, he was truly king of his castle, his world, his fate, where once he'd failed.
Wow, Jimmy and I didn't have to share a throne. How nice.
Some say his childhood years working alongside his father, uncles and brothers as a stone mason building castles for the lords whose land he’d worked prepared him well when the time came to build his own castle in this new land of opportunity. With only his bare hands, basic principles of leverage, a few rudimentary tools and a perpetual motion holder, he had the world (and 30-ton stones) at his fingertips.
Was it simply the physics of leverage that allowed Edward to position the 40-foot, 28-ton obelisk that is centered along the east wall of his castle? I could use that kind of leverage to persuade Jimmy to fly first class next time we travel.
Was it simply the physics of leverage that allowed Edward to position the 40-foot, 28-ton obelisk that is centered along the east wall of his castle? I could use that kind of leverage to persuade Jimmy to fly first class next time we travel.
I much prefer the obelisk to those blow up Santas that always need more hot air.
Or perhaps, as some speculated in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s, when UFO’s and Ouija boards were popular, Edward utilized magnetic forces to set in place the triangular three-ton gate that pivots with ease on an old car axle placed along its center of gravity.
No, that's not my sister Lynda working the front gate. Maybe he's the ghost of Edward.
I'm digging the aqua hat!
A second gate on the opposite wall called ‘Rock Gate’ once operated on the same principle.
I'd hate to get stuck in this turnstyle.
The bearing beneath the shaft rested on a single pie-shaped stone (a stone the University of Florida’s geology department designated as “unidentifiable”decades after Edward’s death in 1951) that should have crumbled under the 9-tons of stone and the rotating torque. The gate operated with incredible efficiency until 1986, when the bearings rusted out.
It took a six-man team of engineers five days to reset the gate using a twenty-ton crane and a laser beam. The gate, however, still does not spin as easily as it did with Edward’s magic touch.
I could use a bit of that magic for a few of my own rusty joints!
Some people speculate when Edward literally picked up and moved his castle 10 miles north, to Homestead, Florida, in 1936 (moving up that corporate ladder makes for some less than desirable relocations), that he was simply drawing on the power from the earth itself. It took him three years to dismantle, transport, and reassemble his castle!
Surely you’ve heard the theory behind the earth’s energy grid?
No? Where have you been?
Obviously nowhere near the ley lines, the intersection points of that energy grid, where several other megalithic monuments have been positioned, including the Dragon’s Triangle off the coast of Japan, the temples of Baalbek in Lebanon, and the Moai heads on Easter Island.
I’m ready to rest my case.
It took a six-man team of engineers five days to reset the gate using a twenty-ton crane and a laser beam. The gate, however, still does not spin as easily as it did with Edward’s magic touch.
I could use a bit of that magic for a few of my own rusty joints!
Some people speculate when Edward literally picked up and moved his castle 10 miles north, to Homestead, Florida, in 1936 (moving up that corporate ladder makes for some less than desirable relocations), that he was simply drawing on the power from the earth itself. It took him three years to dismantle, transport, and reassemble his castle!
Surely you’ve heard the theory behind the earth’s energy grid?
No? Where have you been?
Obviously nowhere near the ley lines, the intersection points of that energy grid, where several other megalithic monuments have been positioned, including the Dragon’s Triangle off the coast of Japan, the temples of Baalbek in Lebanon, and the Moai heads on Easter Island.
I’m ready to rest my case.
I'm convinced Edward had it made in the shade in his Coral Castle.
While I can’t wash my hands (or body) of the mystery of the how and why Edward Leeskalnin’s castle still stands, or what it all means,
I used to be a real bathing beauty. This is as good as it gets now.
I can say without a shadow of a doubt all 1,110 tons of oolitic limestone stands as a mysterious testament to a single man’s imagination and fortitude, and perhaps obsession.
Never mind his castle was just about the only thing left standing after Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 storm, demolished the entire Homestead area in 1992.
The castle is still intact; the walls, the two-story tower where Edward slept,
Never mind his castle was just about the only thing left standing after Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 storm, demolished the entire Homestead area in 1992.
The castle is still intact; the walls, the two-story tower where Edward slept,
Nice little townhouse! Does it come with an elevator?
Edward often had to sleep upright because of his tuberculosis.
and where he kept his tools;
Are these Sears' Craftman tools?
the tables were still standing;
Lynda is patiently waiting for the server to come take our order.
the chairs still sitting very handsomely;
Jimmy has always had wonderful posture, even when sitting.
the sundial was still marking time,
We toured the Coral Castle right about 12:30 p.m.
the well was still providing cool water;
Well, well, well, there is water just a few feet down.
the moon fountain was shiny and full;
Please, please, please let this be the fountain of youth.
the cooker crock pot was hanging right where it had always been.
I wonder if Edward was a boy scout.
And the courtyard where Edward often entertained his guests was still filled with curious sightseers,
It's a party at Coral Castle.
each of whom had paid considerably more than the ten cent cost of admission 60 years ago.
Edward started the house tour trend years ago.
Edward had all the amenities of home (I guess so; this was his home!), right down to the Latvian symbol of the sky, a chevron-shaped stone,
positioned adjacent to his 20-ton Polaris telescope.
I wonder if he had a Polaris submarine, too, hidden somewhere beneath his castle.
About all Edward Leedskalnin could see through his stone telescope was the North Star. Did he look to the heavens for answers or solace during all those years of self-imposed solitude?
Far from home, alone and sick, I hope Edward found a measure of peace in the castle of his dreams.
What about his princess, his lost love?
Was he obsessed with his loss, and his pride, or simply a gifted man destined to discover the secrets of the universe?
The more I travel, the more I realize I'm never going to see it all, much less understand all that I see. But that fact only serves to increase the wonder of what I see, the wonder of this beautiful, wide world I choose to call my home.
_________________________________________
The bottom line on the Coral Castle:
Verdict: If you're into architectural wonders, roadside tourist kitsch or mysteries, you'll love Coral Castle. It was well worth a view into Edward Leedskalnin's world.
How to Get There: Head south from Miami on US 1 for approximately 25 miles, to Homestead, Florida. The Coral Castle will be on the east side of South Dixie Highway.
Insider Information: Early morning or late afternoon is the best time to visit. The noonday sun was a killer, even in the milder, mid-January months.
Nearby Food: There's a small snack bar on the premises, otherwise you have your pick of fast food joints along US 1.
Far from home, alone and sick, I hope Edward found a measure of peace in the castle of his dreams.
What about his princess, his lost love?
Was he obsessed with his loss, and his pride, or simply a gifted man destined to discover the secrets of the universe?
The more I travel, the more I realize I'm never going to see it all, much less understand all that I see. But that fact only serves to increase the wonder of what I see, the wonder of this beautiful, wide world I choose to call my home.
_________________________________________
The bottom line on the Coral Castle:
Verdict: If you're into architectural wonders, roadside tourist kitsch or mysteries, you'll love Coral Castle. It was well worth a view into Edward Leedskalnin's world.
How to Get There: Head south from Miami on US 1 for approximately 25 miles, to Homestead, Florida. The Coral Castle will be on the east side of South Dixie Highway.
Insider Information: Early morning or late afternoon is the best time to visit. The noonday sun was a killer, even in the milder, mid-January months.
Nearby Food: There's a small snack bar on the premises, otherwise you have your pick of fast food joints along US 1.
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