It took a whole lot of patience and thousands of stones for French postman Ferdinand Cheval to build this amazing piece of architecture. What stuns us the most is he devoted 33 years of his life to creating this masterpiece and he had never even had any architectural or masonry training! It is called Le Palais idéal (the “Ideal Palace”) and is in Hauterives, France. Here’s how the story goes… Ferdinand Cheval was out at work one day in April 1879. He tripped over an unusual stone that suddenly reminded him of a dream he had many years before about building a palace by himself. He placed the stone in his pocket and carried on with his day. The next day he went back to the same place and found even more unusual stones. He then decided that he was going to build the palace from his dreams. Each day, after his round, he would collect stones and take them home to add to his palace. He used cement, lime and mortar to bind the stones together. It took 20 years just to build the outer walls! His dream palace was finished in 1912. The palace was declared a cultural and historic landmark in 1969 and today is open for visitors to see this amazing creation.
Website: facteurcheval.com
