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Ferdinand Cheval
1836-1924
Cheval was born and raised in the south of Lyon, France and started working as a Postman by his teen years. For nearly thirty years, he walked the intense 32-kilometer route as a manner of routine until one day he tripped. Upon recovering, he found he stumbled on a beautiful yet bizarre looking stone and realized similar stones were scattered all around him. This instigated the long and arduous obsession of collecting stones. He would use this large collection of stones as the building block to construct a castle that he dreamed of 15 years earlier. For nearly 34 years, Cheval worked day and night, first erecting the outer walls and continuing with sculptures, temples, fountains, and even inscribing poems on the walls of the castle. It is now considered a national monument in France and the major source of income for a town that once denounced Cheval for his obsessive and unconventional artistry.
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