Where does eccentricity come to flourish? America, you could argue. Even more specifically, Florida. That might be too much of a generalization, and these might not be the best of times (or the worst) for American eccentricity, but the example I have in mind actually reaches back a century or so: Ed Leedskalnin, immigrant from Latvia who single-handedly built the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida.
The story goes that his fiancée left him at the altar back in Latvia and that Leedskalnin, born into a family of stonemasons, built the place to remind himself of his lost love once he’d settled in Florida. Since he lived and worked alone, an undergrowth of lore grew around his creation, some stories more ridiculous than others.
Actually, he called it the Rock Gate, and started building it in the 1920s in Florida City, not far away. Considering that some of the oolite limestone structures weigh some tons, one of the amazing parts of the story – just one among many – is that Leedskalnin decided to move them in the late 1930s to their current location on US 1. After that, he added more structures, and the whole thing stands today as a somewhat overpriced tourist attraction, but also a monument to eccentric, determined monomania, the kind that leaves behind a place to gawk at.
I was willing to pay. We took the tour, which is the only way to legally visit inside Coral Castle’s stone walls, just before we left Homestead for the Keys.
“The castle contains many wonders including a sundial, a stone rocking chair, a 500-pound heart-shaped stone table (a ‘Valentine’ for his lost love), and a 9-ton gate made to spin with just a light touch,” Atlas Obsura notes. “Ed was secretive, working on the castle mostly at night, and keeping to a policy of letting no one see his working methods. This led to much speculation that Ledeskalnin used some magical or ancient power to move the giant stones.”
Magical power, eh?
As a more detailed article published by the Skeptics Society points out, Ledeskalnin clearly knew the “principles of levers and fulcra.” I’ll go along with that. If anything, that’s more of an achievement than using magical powers. For all I know about levers and fulcra, it might as well be magic.
And what of Latvia? Our tour group was about 10 people, including a young couple who said they were from Latvia when the guide asked where everyone was from. This answer didn’t surprise him. Apparently they weren’t the first.
Toward the end of the tour, I asked the Latvian man if Ledeskalnin was known in his home country after all these years, and for something so odd (not quite how I phrased it). Oh yes, he said. Maybe not famous, exactly, but people had heard of him (not quite how he phrased it), enough that a steady trickle of Letts come to see his creation while in distant Florida.
