The Backstory: Coral Castle
A bit of Florida weirdness carved in stone
Hi! Happy October! This time of year always has me hunting for stories of the strange, and in Florida we don’t even have to make them up. Let me tell you about Coral Castle. I first saw the place as kid and it left an impression on me – not of grandness but weirdness. First, and this is an important note, it’s not a castle in the traditional sense. So if you showed up in Homestead, Fla. to this roadside attraction expecting towers and turrets, you’d be confused.
What I want you to imagine instead is a bizarre and mysterious sculpture garden made of massive megalithic stones. The place appears ancient because of these old rocks and it was handmade using basic tools and technologies that have yet to be properly defined. And all of it feels a bit surreal in relatively modern surroundings. (So, naturally, it belongs in this newsletter.)
How did these carvings get there? Well, we owe that to a guy named Ed Leedskalnin. You can see him in the foreground of the below photo in front of the crescent moon carving not looking creepy or mysterious at all. On site are also planet carvings, rocking chairs, a functional sundial, a Florida-shaped table, fountains and a two-story tower among other things all carved from tons of oolite limestone.
Originally from Latvia, Ed spent 28 years carving the stones that make up Coral Castle (originally called Rock Gate Park when it opened in 1923 in Florida City.)
The story goes that no one saw Ed actually hauling or cutting the stones. He always worked at night. (I don’t know what the lighting situation was in sparsely inhabited Florida City in the early 1900s, but it couldn’t have been good.) He even moved the first sculptures he made from Florida City to Homestead over a couple of years where they remain today. He claimed to have uncovered the techniques of ancient people like the Egyptians and would simply smile when people asked him questions about it during tours, which he gave personally at 10 cents a head at first and later increased to 25 cents a person.
But why, WHY, would a man spend all his time carving stones in the dark? The museum, now a designated spot in the National Register of historic places, has a story for that, too. Supposedly it is a dedication to the fiancé who broke the engagement with Ed just before the wedding. She was 16 at the time and apparently the number 16 features prominently in this multi-ton love note. There are 16 steps that lead up to the second floor of the house, and 16 more that go down to the well. Other sources say that this is just a story. The more you dig into it, the weirder it gets.
Ed references sweet sixteen in one of his books, A Book in Every Home. The messaging however, doesn’t refer to anyone in particular but more his idea of “sweet sixteen,” which at first glance appears off-putting and creepy with lines like, “All girls below sixteen should be brand new.” But why is this missive on the virtue of young girls in the same book as his political views? The ramblings are all strange enough that they could be a series of coded messages. In fact all the right-hand pages in this book were intentionally left blank in printing, as if the reader is meant to decipher what’s written on the left side as they go.
Whatever the case, Coral Castle definitely raises a lot of questions and piques curiosity. It’s also the inspiration for Billy Idol’s “Sweet Sixteen” and my next flash fiction, which promises a bit of the eerie just in time for Halloween. Stay tuned!