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Building a Palace of Dreams One Pebble at a Time

Thirty miles south of Lyon, in the eastern part of France, a man left his mark over a century and a half ago. Ferdinand Cheval, a postman living in the late 19th century, one day stumbled upon a pebble on his mail route. Little did the world know, this would lead to one of the most stunning palaces in history.

With no outside help or formal training, Cheval took over three decades to build completely by hand what is now known as “Le Palais Idéal.” The structure looks like something out of a movie, a combination of towering pillars and intricate molding. It has been described as a combination of Algerian, Chinese and Northern European architecture. But Cheval saw it more as a fantastic world, writing that, “You start wondering if you have not been carried away into a fantastic dream with boundaries beyond the scope of imagination.”

Cheval built the entire palace with stones he collected from his mail route, bounded together with lime, mortar and cement. Within the structure, he left inscriptions. Cheval was not an architect, he was not a professional builder—he was just a man who wanted to bring a little more beauty into the world.

After 33 years of working on the palace, Cheval’s only wish was to be buried in it. But because the French government wouldn’t allow it, he instead spent eight more years constructing mausoleum for himself at the local cemetery.

Cheval received recognition for his work by great artists and poets like Pablo Picasso and André Breton. In 1969, the French government recognized the palace as a cultural landmark, and in 1986, Cheval was put on a French postal stamp. Today, visitors are encouraged to visit the palace year-round to take in the fantastical world Cheval created.

In his own words inscribed on the walls, “I was not a builder, I had never handled a mason’s trowel, I was not a sculptor. The chisel was unknown to me; not to mention architecture, a field of which I remained totally ignorant. … Everything you can see, passer-by, is the work of one peasant, who, out of a dream, created the queen of the world …”

Location

Hauterives, France

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