For 40 years, Baldasare Forestiere sculpted the visions stored in his mind. The result: a subterranean paradise - with courts, bedrooms, a room-sized aquarium and more - in Fresno, Calif.
By JUDY FLORMAN
Published January 18, 2004
[Photos by Judy Florman]
The subterranean house, patterned after the catacombs of ancient Rome, includes ventilation to the 70 rooms. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it is open for tours.
Baldasare Forestiere built benches and planters into hardpan alcoves around a chapel garden at his Fresno, Calif., retreat.
Some of Baldasare Forestiere’s fruit trees were planted 22 feet deep. When he wanted an orange he climbed to the outside, bent down and picked the fruit off the top of the tree — at ground level.
FRESNO, Calif. - The wonders of ancient Rome have been captured, not in Italy, but in Fresno, beneath the hot and arid San Joaquin Valley.
Around the turn of the century, Baldasare Forestiere, a Sicilian immigrant, set out to create an underground retreat from the valley's oppressive heat. Using only hand tools over a period of 40 years (1906-46), he sculpted "the visions stored in my mind" without benefit of blueprint or plan, eclectically following his instincts and aesthetic inspirations.
Rambling through some 10 acres of a labyrinth of 70 subterranean rooms, courtyards and passageways, patterned after the catacombs of ancient Rome, arches and stonework lead to a garden home replete with kitchen, living room, bedrooms, library, bath, courts and patios.
Born in 1879 as the second son of a Sicilian citrus farmer, Baldasare was not entitled to inherit the family business. When the bottom dropped out of the Sicilian agricultural economy around the turn of the century, he set out to seek his fortune in America. He started out digging subway tunnels in Boston, then moved on to excavate the Croton Aqueduct and the Holland Tunnel in New York.
But farming was in his blood and in 1905 he moved to California, planning to plant citrus and vineyards. For $10 he bought 70 acres 7 miles north of Fresno, only to find his dreams sidetracked by hardpan found 2 feet under topsoil. Instead, he worked for other farmers and in his spare time started hacking away at the ground below his house, using only a pick, shovel and scrapers as tools.
"The odyssey began in 1906," according to niece Lorraine Forestiere, who leads tours of the underground gardens like a standup comedian, "when he dug a basement for storage of his potatoes. He discovered it was cool down there and he could escape the scorching heat of the valley's summer. So he continued digging for 40 years, until his death in 1946."
Not only did he find relief from the heat, but it offered a sanctuary from the world and an opportunity for self-expression and creativity.
"The visions in my mind almost overwhelm me," he told the Fresno Bee in an interview in 1924.
Not much is known about Baldasare; he left few records and no will. "He never married, relates Lorraine, "but rumor traces a visit to Sicily in his early '30s to claim the hand of a maiden promised to him." Perhaps he was scorned, but he returned a bachelor, which he remained.
"He did have lady friends," she said, "but he never spoke about them."
Instead, he seemed to have learned to conquer the attributes and quirks of hardpan, a layer formed thousands of years ago with the solid binding of rock, washed down from the mountains, with silica and other minerals dissolved in water.
"He learned to take advantage of fractures, formed by deposits of lime," Lorraine said. "For supports he used Roman arches, columns and domed ceilings - with the help of mortar and cement."
How many tons of earth did he remove? No one knows for sure, but an auto tunnel running the length of the gardens extends nearly 800 feet.
"Duck," Lorraine warns, as visitors enter through the first archway. "Baldasare was only 5 feet 6!"
In the labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, skylights act as vents, bringing fresh air to the deepest rooms. "He created micro climes," Lorraine said, "through convection and thermo syphons, varying the size and shape of skylights to vary temperatures. In winter or rain, he would cover them with a sheet of glass or cardboard, then light his fireplaces to keep warm. The skylights also acted as openings for his citrus trees.
"He planted his first tree in 1906, watered by rain," Lorraine added. "Some trees were planted as deep as 22 feet. If he wanted to pick an orange, all he had to do was go above ground and bend down and pick the fruit from the top of the tree - at ground level."
He even grafted one tree to bear seven different varieties of fruit - navel orange, Valencia orange, sweet lemon, sour lemon, grapefruit, tangerine and cedro (a citron). In addition to the citrus, still growing are his quince, Italian pears, date palms, carob, jujube, avocado, persimmon and mistletoe.
Benches and planters were built into hardpan alcoves around a chapel garden. Lorraine said she senses Baldasare's deep religious convictions in his affinity for building in threes: three trees in the courtyard, three levels to the entrance. "Symbolic," she believes, "of the Holy Trinity."
His home consisted of a kitchen, nook, two bedrooms - one for summer and one warmed with a fireplace for winter - living room, library, bath, fish pond and aquarium. And he engineered, at strategic points throughout the house, peep holes to espy visitors at the front door.
To fill his bath tub, he attached a hose to a metal tank above ground, where the sun would heat the water. After bathing, he would pull the plug and drain to a lower level of sand, thus assuring no remaining standing water.
A sliding door separated kitchen and bedroom, and a slide-out table hid a wood box for the stove. "He would go fishing and would store his catch in a shallow pond in the kitchen, so he always had fresh fish," Lorraine said.
But his most ingenious creation was the room-sized aquarium, which he built at a higher level. He sculpted a nook below for table and chair, so that he could sit and read underneath and look up to watch the fish swimming.
"But he was not a recluse," Lorraine insists. "He drove a car and took flying lessons so he could commute to his orchards in Coalinga. And he was interested in the outside world. During World War II, he would listen to Lowell Thomas' newscasts on the radio. He even invited visitors to tour his gardens on Sundays from May through September.
"When people asked him what he was doing, he'd answer that he was planning to build a restaurant. But that was probably only a gimmick to discourage criticism," Lorraine said. "He had enough money to build a restaurant, but, I guess, he preferred to go on digging rather than serve food."
The Forestiere Underground Gardens, originally opened to the public as a museum after Baldasare's death in 1946, have passed to the control of his great-nephew Andre, Lorraine's son, who reports 15,000 tourists annually. In 1979 it was registered as a Historic Landmark, listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
- Judy Florman is a freelance writer living in Santa Ana, Calif.
If you go
The Forestiere Underground Gardens offers a fascinating stop for tourists traveling through central California.
Operating hours are Wednesday through Sunday during summer and weekends during off-season. Call 559 271-0734 for times and reservations. You can also get more information on the Web at www.undergroundgardens.com Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for ages 60 and older, $6 for ages 13-17 and $4 for ages 4-12.
The gardens are at 5021 W Shaw Ave., Fresno, CA 93722.
