Baldassare Forestiere

What intrigued me the most in the Underground Gardens of Forestiere were his actual living quarters. Walking through his rooms and tunnels it was hard to imagine one man doing all of it with just a pick and a shovel.

Baldassare Forestiere

(Photo courtesy of KnorQ)

By Giovanni di Napoli

Baldassare Forestiere was born on July 8, 1879 in Filari, a small town in the Province of Messina, Sicily. At the age of 22, after a quarrel with his father, Rosario Forestiere, he immigrated to the United States via the port of Naples. He arrived in Boston in 1901 and found work as a subway tunnel digger. He eventually moved on to New York City to work as a Sandhog, digging tunnels for the subway leading to New Jersey.

Pursuing his dream of cultivating citrus trees, Baldassare moved west, arriving in Fresno, California in 1906. He worked as a farm laborer at the local grape orchards, eventually saving enough money to purchase his own parcel of land. Unfortunately, he bought a plot sight unseen. Due to the thin layer of topsoil and impervious hardpan below, the land was ill suited for farming.

Dismayed by this setback, Baldassare began digging a cellar to escape the scorching Fresno heat. Temperatures would soar to as high as 120 degrees by midday so he worked mostly at night. With only his pick, shovel, and sheer-determination, the Sicilian carved himself an underground sanctuary reminiscent of his ancestral homeland.

For over 40 years Baldassare labored on his subterranean home, creating an interconnecting network of almost a hundred underground rooms, grottos and passageways. He had a kitchen, bath, library, chapel, fishpond and aquarium. The masonry, particularly the archways, was modeled after the crypts and catacombs of his native Sicily (minus the mummies).

The visionary experimented with planting trees and vines below ground, under skylights, with great success. The environment not only proved suitable for agriculture, it also had the advantage of protecting the plants from frost. He grafted as many as seven different types of fruits onto his trees. Some are over 90-years-old. Forestiere’s Garden has been referred to as an “underground Mediterranean resort in the middle of California.”

Baldassare Forestiere died on November 10, 1946 in Fresno, California at the age of 67. Today, his underground haven is a California Historical Landmark (No. 916) and Fresno City and County Historical Site. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. During an interview Baldassare said, “To make something with lots of money, that is easy – but to make something out of nothing… now that is something.”