A rock and a hard place

A local unskilled peasant, Ferdinand Cheval spent 33 years creating his castle. Now considered an architectural feat, The Postman's Palace is testament to the power of dreams�

Featured June 08

A local unskilled peasant, Ferdinand Cheval spent 33 years creating his castle. Now considered an architectural feat, The Postman’s Palace is testament to the power of dreams…

WORDS BY MARTIN SAYERS

IN THE VILLAGE OF HAUTERIVES, 30 MILES SOUTH OF LYON IN THE DRÔME REGION OF CENTRAL FRANCE, LIES A BEAUTIFUL PALACE. Known as Le Palais Ideal, it’s a staggering mixture of styles, from Gothic castle to Eastern temple, all blended together to form a truly astonishing structure. But this building was not the product of teams of workmen and architects; it was built with the blood, sweat and tears of just one man. His name was Ferdinand Cheval and he was completely devoid of any architectural or building training but, over the course of several decades, he managed to construct something that truly has to be seen to be believed.

The facts behind this wonderful, bizarre creation are astonishing. Cheval was the postman for the village and had absolutely no skills; he was poorly educated and had never travelled beyond the immediate locality. Yet, he single-handedly constructed a building that is today fêted by artists and architects the world over.

Ferdinand Cheval was born in 1836, in the tiny hamlet of Charmes-sur-l’Herbasse. After serving an apprenticeship as a baker, he took a job as a facteur (postman) in nearby Hauterives, serving an outlying rural area that meant walking 20 miles a day. As he walked his route he had one recurring vision of building a huge and fantastical palace. As the legend goes, one day he stumbled across a beautiful stone, which he put in his bag and took home. From then on he would collect stones each day while on his round—often rising at two or three in the morning to give himself enough time—and place them in large piles. Later on, he would come back with his wheelbarrow and pick them up, and take them back to where the palace of his visions was beginning to take shape.

As he worked, Ferdinand would often inscribe pearls of wisdom into the walls of his creation, such as “Life is a quick steed. My thoughts will live on with this rock,” and, “This is of art, of dreams, and of energy.” He was undoubtedly proud of his humble origins, “Passer-by, everything you see is the work of a peasant,” he has inscribed at one point.

According to the curator, Christophe Bonin, Ferdinand was regarded with some suspicion by the locals: “The villagers of Hauterives thought him mad,” he says, “but word started to spread about his extraordinary creation and there was interest from journalists from around 1897. It started to attract tourists and such was the interest that Ferdinand opened a visitors’ book in 1905 and employed a guide, my own great-grandmother, in 1907.”

The palace itself does not fit into any particular style. It’s more of a teeming mass of sculptures, temples, and bizarre statues, fountains and towers. More than 1,000 miniature palaces, along with temples dedicated to several different religions, are nestled in the building’s façade. Among the many oddities to be found inside Cheval’s creation are a Swiss chalet, a Hindu temple, statues of Julius Caesar and Archimedes and hosts of stone angels soaring towards heaven. This is all watched over by gatherings of stone eagles, flamingos, ostriches, and geese. Even an octopus spreads its stone tentacles over the west side of the palace.

Cheval finished construction in 1912 and it was his wish to be buried inside the palace like an Egyptian Pharaoh, but the local authority refused to grant him permission. Instead, he went back to work and constructed a magnificent vault in the village cemetery to house himself and his wife after they passed on. This in itself took him eight years. The tomb is a marvellous intertwining of different forms and motifs, adorned with various figures and friezes. Facteur Cheval died in 1924, at the age of 88, and lies at rest in this surreal creation.

It was only after his death that his work came to the nation’s attention. Picasso was an admirer and the famous French surrealist André Breton described him as the “uncontested master of metonymic architecture and sculpture.”

After his creation was completed, Ferdinand inscribed these words on one of the palace’s plaques: “1879-1912—10,000 days, 93,000 hours, 33 years of struggle. Let those who think they can do better try.”

It seems unlikely that anyone will.

• The palace is 30 miles south of Lyon, at the crossing of D51 and D538 in Hauterives.
• Ferdinand Cheval began construction in 1879 and finished in 1912.
• The palace is 12 metres tall at its highest point.
• It consists of 1,000 metres of masonry and 3,500 bags of lime were used in its construction.
• A statue of Facteur Cheval stands outside Hauterives post office.