Photo Essay: Madman or Genius?

News reports warned of a record-breaking scorcher, but I headed to Central California anyway, eager to see if Fresno’s underground gardens -- built as shelter from the area’s oppressive heat -- were fact or fiction.

For over forty-years, Sicilian immigrant Baldassare Forestiere excavated underground rooms in the hard rock below what was then considered worthless farmland. Using only picks and shovels, the artist/builder carved a comfortable and cool home furnished with an outdoor bathtub, bedroom and kitchen. Throughout the underground estate, planters located beneath skylights are potted with subterranean fruit trees -- their branches struggling up toward sunlight.

You'll find hidden treasures and tales of vice and romance at Baldassare’s underground home. However, I won’t give away any of the juicy details Forestiere's family members provide during guided tours of this “living monument to a creative and individualistic spirit unbounded by conventionality.”

Visit yourself to decide whether Baldassare Forestiere was a madman or a genius.

Forestiere Underground Gardens
5021 West Shaw Avenue
Fresno, California 93722
559-271-0734

www.undergroundgardens.info
www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/